A new spin on ADHD research

We're studying the effect of DJing as a clinical intervention for young adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Virginia Tech Digging in the Crates, specifically Freddie Page and Craig Arthur approached me and approached the Embodied Brain Lab as we study the effects of mind-body movement practices on brain function and physiology. And so they run this whole DJing program here where they teach individuals how to DJ, teach about the history, have different workshops and events. I've been DJing since 1997, and DJing has been really beneficial for me, both cognitively and also socially. I haven't really found peer-reviewed research into the benefits of DJing. You've got to put yourself all the way in it. It's hard to be distracted. You can't really multitask while you're DJing. So it allows you to hyper-focus on what you're doing and just get fully immersed in the creative process. We're looking at it from both a behavioral and brain perspective. Looking to see how learning to DJ and paying attention to that music quality and music production can enhance attention, shift mood state, shift neural patterns. We're working with a music intervention in this space. And of course, you know, music being intimately connected to movement and that music is one of the major drivers of movement. And so, and especially when you think about DJing, the DJ really acts as kind of the psychologist of the dance floor and by getting them the individuals on that dance floor to move and to groove and to dance to the beat and then you're getting all these individuals synchronously moving together and kind of creating this the social or collective experience and we're finding that these kinds of experiences produce improvements in mood state make people happy and also make a feeling of social connection or community and we're hypothesizing that all these effects are really produced in the brain through the release of neurotransmitters and through something that's called neural synchrony or interbrain synchrony whereby everybody's brainwaves start to synchronize together. I bring the DJing skill set and knowledge and Dr. Basso has a neuroscience background. It's been my first time really working with someone in her field and also conducting a research study like this.