Prof. Indrė Viskontas: The Neuroscience of Music Connects My Two Professional Passions

On 3 July, Vilnius University (VU) hosted a public lecture titled "How Music Can Make You Better" by Indrė Viskontas, a music neuroscientist and Professor at the University of San Francisco who was raised in a Lithuanian emigrant family. Together with Ramunė Dirvanskienė, Associate Professor at the Institute of Psychology of the VU Faculty of Philosophy, and colleagues from two other countries, Prof. Viskontas is conducting research on the effects of music on the human brain during the centenary Lithuanian Song Celebration.

The lecture garnered significant interest, with over 2,000 views on the VU Faculty of Philosophy’s Facebook page. At the beginning of the event, the participants were welcomed by Assoc. Prof. Dr Vytis Silius, Vice-Dean of the VU Faculty of Philosophy, and Prof. Roma Jusienė, Director of the Institute of Psychology. Prof. Viskontas was introduced to the audience by Assoc. Prof. Dr Dirvanskienė.

On the same day prior to giving the lecture at the VU Aula Parva Hall, Indrė Viskontas and Ramunė Dirvanskienė, along with their colleagues Dr Neta Maimon from Tel Aviv University and Dr Ivana Konvalinka from the Technical University of Denmark they conducted research with singers from ‘Trys keturiose’ (led by Daiva Vyčinienė) – a folk music group performing sutartinės, traditional Lithuanian polyphonic songs. During their performance, the researchers measured their brain waves and heart rate.

After the lecture, Prof. Viskontas kindly agreed to answer a few questions about herself and her research.

You are an opera singer and director. What sparked your interest in neuroscience?

It was the other way around. I grew up in Canada: my great-grandparents were born in Lithuania but were forced to emigrate during the war. So, I was always taught to seek a job that could support my livelihood. I was told to become a doctor. However, since I had no desire to pursue a career in medicine, I became a PhD in psychology instead. I was encouraged to finish my education first, and then – as my grandfather used to say – I could do whatever I wanted. So, having graduated in psychology, I put aside my studies in the field of neuroscience and delved into singing and pursuing a Master of Music degree in Voice Performance. I then became an opera singer-turned-director. It was not until later that my fascination with creativity developed – especially about the impact of music on our brains. It was an opportunity to combine my two professional passions.

During your lecture, you mentioned that music has been a part of humanity since the dawn of civilisation. How would you explain the significance of music for human existence?

Humans are dynamic: sometimes, we want to express or resolve what words cannot capture. Emotions are not static, and where language falls short, music can reflect those changes. The word describes a specific emotion in a rather fixed way, not conveying all of its shades and transitions: when people communicate, their interactions are very dynamic. I believe that music enables us to prove that.

During the Lithuanian Song Celebration, you are conducting international research in cooperation with Dr Dirvanskienė. Where will the results be published?

The study also involves Dr Neta Maimon from Tel Aviv University, who is measuring brain waves, and Dr Ivana Konvalinka from the Technical University of Denmark, whose focus is on heart rate synchronisation. We expect to collect a wealth of data. Of course, the data will have to be interpreted, and there is always a chance of something not working as planned, so it is difficult to predict the exact outcome in advance. But we hope to produce at least a few publications, and I will certainly share the results in my upcoming book.

Among all other activities, you are also President of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity. Please tell us more about it.

I have been President of the Association since 1 June of this year. It brings together academic researchers interested in the phenomenon of creativity. I am thrilled to serve as a kind of translator to facilitate communication between academics, researchers, and artists, as I balance science and artistic creativity in my practice. Our research carried out during the Lithuanian Song Celebration will make a significant contribution to this. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the organisers of this festival for their kind assistance.

Next May, our Association will hold a major event at Sorbonne University in Paris, which has a long history of neuroscience research. Therefore, it will be an honour to attend it. All those interested in creativity research are welcome to the conference: there will be lectures and poster sessions where various studies and research works will be presented. I am not sure yet, but the conference programme might include a production of the neurological opera I direct, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" by Michael Nyman.

Do you apply scientific knowledge in your creative work?

The focus of my dissertation was memory. Understanding how our brains remember information and learn new skills is invaluable to me as a singer. We do not always follow the brain’s natural processes in stage practice. For instance, when rehearsing for a performance, we should take a break for a few days before the actual event, giving ourselves some time to reset and "forget" what we have learned. But as you step onto the stage, everything floods back because you have already rehearsed that feeling of ‘almost forgetting’. However, the opposite happens in practice: the most intense rehearsal occurs right before the performance.

On the other hand, as a director, I know how to work with singers, navigate their emotional landscapes, and offer them advice or constructive criticism. As a singer myself, I understand how overwhelming stage fright can undermine all of your hard work; you just have to learn to deal with it.

You are also a host of TV and radio shows and a podcast producer. Do you like interacting with the audience?

My stage experience and knowledge of neuroscience have proven useful on television. After graduation, I started a career in science communication. I found talking to people about various research topics relatively easy and quite fun. I really love interacting with the audience. I enjoy this job and am currently dedicating a significant amount of time to it. I think it is worth raising public awareness of our scientific work because society supports research, whether through their taxes or other means.