Drumming and group drumming can support mood, ease anxiety and distress, strengthen social connection, and offer a motivating way into movement, attention and rehabilitation. The studies gathered here are the ones reporting those benefits, from randomised trials to small pilots and single cases.
Each entry says plainly what kind of study it is before it says what was found, because that is the part that tells you how much weight it carries: a randomised controlled trial and a three-person pilot are both worth reading and are not the same thing. Nothing here is a claim that drumming treats a medical condition. Every entry links to the study itself, and where a readable write-up exists, to that as well.
- Reviews and overviews
- Mental health and wellbeing
- Stress, burnout and the workplace
- Children, young people and education
- Autism, brain structure and brain function
- Older adults, ageing and dementia
- Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, stroke and rehabilitation
- Hospitals and serious illness
- Trauma, addiction and criminal justice
- Synchrony, bonding and the social high
- Drumming as exercise
- Drumming and states of consciousness
- Further afield
Reviews and overviews
Where to start: papers that survey the field rather than report one study.
A systematic review of rhythm-centred music making (2017)
Systematic review. Researchers at Singapore General Hospital brought together the research on active rhythm-centred music making, including group drumming, and found promising effects across psychological, social, cognitive and some physiological outcomes. They emphasised that the studies were varied and frequently small.
Read the full study in Complementary Therapies in Medicine · the University of Essex: Drumming for health and wellbeing
Therapeutic drumming for mental health in the autism community: a scoping review (2023)
Scoping review. A Western Michigan University team mapped the research on therapeutic drumming for autistic people and found early evidence for benefits involving regulation, attention, motor skills, social participation and wellbeing, while concluding the field still needs larger samples and stronger outcome measures.
Read the full study in Open Journal of Occupational Therapy · Read the full study at ResearchGate
Mental health and wellbeing
The strongest and most directly applicable body of work.
Group drumming, anxiety, depression and the immune system (2016)
Controlled longitudinal study. The landmark study in this field. Mental health service users took ten weeks of group drumming against a non-music control at the Royal College of Music and Imperial College London. Depression and anxiety fell, social resilience and wellbeing improved, gains held at three month follow up, and saliva samples showed a shift from a pro-inflammatory towards an anti-inflammatory immune profile.
Read the full study in PLOS ONE · CultureCase: The many benefits of group drumming for mental health service users · the Royal College of Music’s write-up of the study
Group drumming modulates cytokine response (2016)
Preliminary biological study. The biological arm of the study above, published separately: the paper to cite when the immune findings are wanted on their own rather than bundled with self-report measures. Small sample, so preliminary.
Read the full study in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
How group drumming mediates recovery (2016)
Qualitative study. The companion question to whether drumming helps: why. Interviews with 39 mental health patients and carers who had shown recovery after a djembe programme identified the ingredients, including a creative and mutually supportive learning space, belonging, confidence, agency and reconnection with ordinary life.
Read the full study in Psychology of Well-Being · the Sound Body Brain research group: Making music for mental health
Group drumming with mental health service users and their carers (2018)
Qualitative study. Service users and carers described emotional, psychological, social and physical benefits from a ten week programme: positive emotion, purpose, connectedness, confidence, respite from illness-related roles and shared achievement. The carer findings are the distinctive contribution.
Read the full study in International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being · The study’s record at the Royal Northern College of Music
A drumming and dance programme for university students (2025)
Randomised controlled trial. Seventy-six students at the National University of Singapore were randomised to a ten week Music and Groove programme of group drumming and dance, or to a control. The programme improved several mental health, quality of life and creativity outcomes.
Read the full study in BMC Public Health · The study’s record at PubMed
A single wellness drumming session and mood (2014)
Pre and post study. University of Minnesota students reported more positive and less negative affect after one group wellness drumming session. Evidence for an immediate mood effect, with nothing to say about how long it lasts.
Read the full study in The Arts in Psychotherapy · The study’s record at Berklee
Stress, burnout and the workplace
The most cited work in the field, and the source of much of what gets said about drumming and stress.
Group drumming and neuroendocrine-immune parameters (2001)
Controlled laboratory study. The most cited drumming study in existence. A facilitated group drumming protocol produced increased DHEA to cortisol ratios and increased natural killer cell activity in healthy volunteers, the opposite direction to the classic stress response.
Read the full study in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine · The Clinician: Drumming enhances immune function · Remo: Impact on the immune system study
Recreational music-making and burnout in care workers (2003)
Controlled randomised study. A six session group drumming and keyboard protocol with 112 long-term care workers produced statistically significant improvements across multiple burnout and mood dimensions, with a 46 per cent reduction in total mood disturbance and cost savings modelled independently.
Read the full study in Advances in Mind-Body Medicine · Read the full study in Americans for the Arts · Yamaha: Long term care workers find stress relief in music
Recreational music-making with student nurses (2004)
Controlled crossover study. The same six session protocol with 75 first year nursing students significantly reduced burnout and mood disturbance, with a projected saving from improved student retention. Directly relevant to trainee and student groups.
Read the full study in International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship · Remo: Stop nursing student burnout music therapy shows positive impact
Group drumming as self-care for social workers (2013)
Exploratory study. Social workers described improved mood, wellbeing, connection and empowerment after facilitated group drumming, suggesting a practical self-care and team-building activity for emotionally demanding professions.
Read the full study in Arts and Health · Americans for the Arts’s write-up of the study
Drumming against burnout in mental health staff (2015)
Qualitative pilot. Staff at a South African child and adolescent mental health service described drumming sessions as relaxing, energising and emotionally expressive, with benefits for belonging and team connection. Seventeen participants, so evidence of acceptability rather than proof of reduced burnout.
Read the full study in South African Journal of Psychology
Children, young people and education
Real world programme evaluations alongside laboratory work on how rhythm reaches children.
Group drumming and social-emotional behaviour in low-income children (2011)
Controlled school study. Children in a UCLA programme showed improvement in teacher-rated social-emotional indicators, including attention and behavioural regulation, compared with controls. One of the better controlled studies in a school setting.
Read the full study in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine · NAMM’s write-up of the study
DRUMBEAT: drumming with at-risk young people across 19 schools (2013)
Multi-school programme evaluation. The ten week DRUMBEAT programme, evaluated by the University of Western Australia with about 180 students, found a 10 per cent rise in self-esteem scores and fewer recorded behaviour incidents for 29 per cent of participants. The use of independent school records alongside self-report is what lifts it above a typical programme evaluation.
Read the full study in Journal of Public Mental Health · Read the full study in Rhythm2Recovery
The original DRUMBEAT evaluation (2012)
Mixed methods evaluation. The first evaluation of the DRUMBEAT programme with alienated young people, using questionnaires, observation, teacher feedback and school attendance and behaviour records.
Read the full study in Children Australia
Drumming to a New Beat: disadvantaged adolescent boys (2017)
Programme evaluation. A combined drumming and discussion programme was associated with improvements in wellbeing and behaviour among disadvantaged adolescent boys, including promising changes in trauma-related symptoms. The drumming provided an engaging route into reflection and talk.
Read the full study in Children Australia
The Drum Circle Project in an alternative school (2010)
Qualitative study. A twelve week drum circle programme with young people considered at risk, from Concordia University Montreal. Participants and observers described engagement, emotional expression, belonging, cooperation, and chances to experience competence without relying on verbal skill.
Read the full study at Rhythm Research Resources
Rock drumming with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties (2019)
Matched-control pilot. Children receiving rock drumming tuition through the Clem Burke Drumming Project showed improvements in motor coordination and selected psychosocial measures compared with matched controls, suggesting a demanding, motivating motor skill can transfer beyond music.
Read the full study via PubMed Central · the University of Essex: Drumming for health and wellbeing
Group drumming and aggression in adolescent girls (2016)
Randomised controlled pilot. Twenty-six girls diagnosed with conduct disorder were randomised to three weeks of group drumming or usual activities in a South African study. Aggression scores fell markedly in the drumming group. Very small and short, so the finding is a lead rather than a conclusion.
Read the full study in South African Journal of Occupational Therapy
Oxytocin in maltreated children during taiko drumming (2017)
Exploratory biomarker study. Children living in group homes in Japan gave saliva samples around taiko sessions. Mean oxytocin concentration rose across the sessions, an objective biological signal in a population that is difficult to study.
Read the full study in Brain Sciences · The study’s record at Kanazawa University
Oxytocin, friends and strangers in children’s drum circles (2026)
Pilot experiment. Facilitated drum circles appeared to trigger oxytocin release in young children, but only when they drummed with friends rather than strangers. Directly relevant to how facilitators think about group formation.
Read the full study in Brain and Behavior · PsyPost: Drumming with friends increases oxytocin levels in children study finds
Preschool children synchronise better with a person than a machine (2009)
Controlled developmental experiment. At the Max Planck Institute, children as young as two and a half adjusted their drumming tempo to a beat outside their natural range, but only when the beat came from a human partner rather than a drumming machine or a speaker. Good evidence that the person opposite is doing the work, not the beat alone.
Read the full study in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Drumming experience sharpens infants’ perception (2015)
Developmental experiment. Infants given brief active drumming experience became more sensitive to whether drum strikes they saw matched the sounds they heard, showing that even a little active rhythmic participation shapes multisensory perception early in life.
Read the full study in PLOS ONE · The study’s record at the University of St Andrews
Autism, brain structure and brain function
Neuroimaging evidence that learning to drum changes the brain, not just how people feel.
Learning to drum changes behaviour and brain function in autistic adolescents (2022)
Randomised neuroimaging study. Probably the strongest single piece of evidence in the field. Thirty-six autistic adolescents with no drumming experience had two lessons a week for two months at King’s College London, with MRI before and after. Those whose drumming improved showed less hyperactivity and inattention and better emotional control, and scans showed increased connectivity in networks responsible for inhibitory control and self-regulation.
Read the full study in PNAS · Neuroscience News’s write-up of the study · the University of Chichester: Drumming improves behaviour and brain function in autistic adolescents scientists reveal
Drum training reshapes the cerebellum (2020)
Controlled imaging study. Fifteen healthy non-musicians learned to drum for eight weeks and were compared with matched controls. The cerebellum showed significant changes in grey matter volume and white matter microstructure, supporting drumming as an unusually demanding model of whole-brain motor learning.
Read the full study in Scientific Reports · the University of Essex: The healing power of drumming
Drumming Up a Connection: motor learning changes the resting brain (2017)
Controlled imaging study. The proof of concept study the autism work was built on. Eight weeks of drum training in novices altered resting connectivity between auditory, motor and parietal regions, showing the brain reorganises through drum-based practice.
Read the full study in Cerebral Cortex · Read the full study in University of Gloucestershire
Boom Chack Boom: the brains of professional drummers (2020)
Cross-sectional imaging study. Twenty professional drummers showed different corpus callosum microstructure and needed less motor cortex activation during tapping than non-musicians, which the authors read as a more efficient neural organisation for two-handed control.
Read the full study in Brain and Behavior · Ruhr University Bochum: Neuroscience how playing drums changes brain
How percussionists’ brains encode sound (2017)
Cross-sectional comparison. At Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, percussionists showed more precise neural encoding of the fast-changing features of speech than non-musicians, while vocalists excelled at frequency discrimination. Long-term rhythm training appears to tune how the brain processes sound generally.
Read the full study in European Journal of Neuroscience
Percussionists hear speech in noise better (2016)
Cross-sectional comparison. The companion study: percussionists outperformed non-musicians at picking speech out of background noise, suggesting rhythm expertise has practical everyday transfer.
The study’s record at Northwestern University
Older adults, ageing and dementia
Small trials, but with unusually objective outcome measures for this field.
A drum communication programme in nursing homes (2020)
Pilot randomised controlled trial. Forty-six nursing home residents with cognitive impairment or dementia were randomised to drumming three times a week for three months or usual activities. The drumming group showed improved cognitive function and upper limb range of motion.
Read the full study in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience · The Senior: Drum therapy helps people with dementia in aged care with speech
Rhythm-centred music making with community-living older adults (2017)
Randomised crossover pilot. Fifty-four older adults in Singapore took ten weekly sessions in a crossover design, with encouraging changes in quality of life and psychosocial outcomes and clear evidence the programme was feasible and enjoyed.
Read the full study in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine · the International Menopause Society: Rhythm centered music making in community living elderly a randomized pilot study
Percussion with familiar music for anxiety and agitation in dementia (2012)
Controlled clinical study. Older adults with dementia in Taiwanese care institutions joined group sessions combining percussion instruments with familiar songs, with reduced anxiety and agitation. The music and the percussion cannot be separated, but active participation appears to add something.
Read the full study in International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry
Drumming-based cognitive and physical training in older adults (2025)
Randomised controlled trial. Forty Korean adults aged 55 and over completed four weeks of drumming-based training or a control programme. The drumming group improved on selected cognitive and mood measures and showed increased oxygenation in the left orbitofrontal cortex during testing.
Read the full study in Applied Sciences · The study’s record at Dongguk University
African drum training and short-term memory in Hong Kong (2023)
Prospective pilot. A Chinese University of Hong Kong pilot with the Hong Kong Association of African Drumming investigated whether group drum training benefits memory in older people with memory complaints. Indicative rather than conclusive.
Read the full study in Alzheimer’s and Dementia
Older and Bolder: older adults finding voice through taiko (2018)
Qualitative study. Older adults in a Boston taiko programme described physical, social and emotional benefits, empowerment and public visibility: a stronger sense that older people can be active cultural contributors rather than an audience.
Read the full study in Innovation in Aging
Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, stroke and rehabilitation
Drumming as movement therapy, with objective brain imaging behind several of these.
DRUM-PD: drum circles for people with Parkinson’s (2016)
Controlled pilot. People with Parkinson’s disease attended twice-weekly drum circles at Johns Hopkins. Quality of life measures improved over the six week intervention, and drifted back towards baseline once the sessions stopped, which is itself an argument for keeping them going.
Read the full study in Movement Disorders Clinical Practice · neurologytoday.aan.com’s write-up of the study
Parkinson’s Beats: the lived experience of cardio-drumming (2024)
Qualitative study. People living with Parkinson’s described adapted cardio-drumming as enjoyable and socially connecting, with perceived benefits for movement, fitness, mood, confidence and flow. Useful for understanding why people keep coming back to rhythmic exercise.
Read the full study in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · The study’s record at Robert Gordon University
Drumming and apparent myelin remodelling in Huntington’s disease (2020)
Longitudinal imaging pilot. After two months of drumming exercises at Cardiff’s brain imaging centre, patients with early Huntington’s showed imaging changes read as possible myelin remodelling in pathways connecting the two hemispheres, with no such change in controls. The authors describe it as a catch-up effect.
Read the full study in Journal of Huntington’s Disease · The study’s record at Cardiff University
Rhythm exercise and executive function in Huntington’s disease (2014)
Pilot study. The Cardiff programme’s first outing: a drumming and rhythm intervention targeting executive problems, with improvements accompanied by white matter changes on MRI. Five patients completed it, and the rhythms used were kuku and Cuban son.
Read the full study in Journal of Huntington’s Disease
HD-DRUM: a drumming training app for Huntington’s and Parkinson’s (2023 onwards)
Registered trials in progress. The same Cardiff group turning their drumming intervention into a tablet app that can be tested at trial scale. Worth citing to show the field is moving beyond pilots.
Read the full study in BMJ Open · Read the full study in JMIR Formative Research
Virtual reality drumming for attention after brain injury (2024)
Randomised crossover study. People with acquired brain injury completed immersive two-handed virtual reality drumming and conventional cognitive training in a crossover design. The drumming condition produced promising gains in executive and alternating attention while engaging coordinated movement.
Read the full study via PubMed Central · Read the full study in Frontiers in Neurology
Hospitals and serious illness
Drumming taken to the bedside and into ceremony, tested first for whether it is welcome and safe.
In-room drumming for transplant patients (2022)
Hospital pilot. Thirty-five patients receiving stem cell transplants at Wake Forest were offered thirty minute drumming sessions in their rooms. Energy, mood, relaxation, distress, pain and anxiety scores all improved across sessions, and every participant said it improved their stay.
Read the full study in Music and Medicine
A drum circle for patients, families and staff in a children’s hospital (2020)
Mixed methods study. At CHU Sainte-Justine in Montreal, shared drum circle sessions for patients, employees and visitors increased positive affect and decreased negative affect immediately afterwards, and interviews suggested the activity was welcome and safe in a hospital setting.
A drum and dance ceremony for people with chronic illness (2015)
Feasibility study. A ceremony adapted from the Congolese ngoma tradition was offered at Duke to seventeen people, most living with chronic illness. Sixteen reported a positive experience, describing social support, stress relief, spiritual value and better tolerance of movement.
Read the full study in Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine · Oncology Nursing News: Finding a new beat drumming as therapy for breast cancer
The ngoma ceremony against mindfulness-based stress reduction (2017)
Randomised pilot. Twenty-one women were randomised to eight weeks of the modified ngoma programme or mindfulness-based stress reduction, and both groups improved on some stress measures. Far too small to claim equivalence; big enough to justify a fuller trial.
Read the full study at PubMed · Read the full study via PubMed Central
Trauma, addiction and criminal justice
Powerful accounts and improving designs, from soldiers to prisons to culturally grounded recovery.
Drumming through trauma: music therapy with post-traumatic soldiers (2008)
Qualitative clinical study. Group drumming with six Israeli soldiers carrying post-traumatic symptoms increased openness, togetherness, belonging and intimacy, and the authors suggest it created a non-intimidating platform for approaching traumatic memories, including a contained way to express rage. Small, and frequently the most resonant study for trauma-focused audiences.
Read the full study in The Arts in Psychotherapy · US Veterans Affairs: Connecting veterans through the power of percussion
Group drumming for incarcerated men re-entering the community (2021)
Randomised pilot. Men in a halfway house were randomised to treatment as usual or a weekly drum group for eight weeks. Retention in the programme was significantly higher in the drum group, and qualitative analysis found drumming supported coping, connection and self-empowerment.
Read the full study in Journal of Experimental Criminology
Drumming and alternative masculinity in a maximum security prison (2022)
Phenomenological study. Across twelve djembe sessions, participants first saw the drum as insufficiently masculine and then changed their minds, while the facilitators’ non-judgemental approach filtered into how the men treated each other. The masculinity finding transfers directly to men’s group work generally.
Read the full study in International Journal of Community Music
Drumming Out Drugs (2003)
Observational review. Michael Winkelman’s much-cited account of drumming in addiction recovery, built from participant observation and a review of the literature. It reports relaxation, release of emotional trauma, reconnection with self, and reduced isolation among people in recovery.
Read the full study in American Journal of Public Health · X8 Drums: Study shows drumming enhances addiction recovery
Percussion with people with addiction and offending histories (2017)
Qualitative case study. A University of Kentucky programme used rhythm as a context for recognising and evaluating emotional coping strategies, with participants developing camaraderie and practising social-emotional skills relevant to recovery.
Read the full study at jstor.org · The study’s record at ERIC
Drum-Assisted Recovery Therapy for Native Americans: the pretest (2014)
Feasibility pretest. The DARTNA programme combined culturally meaningful drumming, talking circles and recovery material for American Indian and Alaska Native adults with substance use problems. The ten-person pretest found high acceptability and cultural resonance.
Read the full study via PubMed Central · The study’s record at PubMed
DARTNA: the feasibility randomised controlled trial (2021)
Feasibility RCT. Sixty-three American Indian and Alaska Native adults were randomised in the follow-up trial with UCLA and RAND. The culturally grounded intervention proved deliverable and acceptable, with encouraging signals on selected symptoms, though the study was not powered to prove efficacy.
Read the full study in Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
Synchrony, bonding and the social high
The mechanism research: why drumming together does something drumming alone does not.
Performing music raises pain threshold; listening does not (2012)
Field and laboratory experiments. Robin Dunbar’s foundational endorphin work at Oxford. Active singing, dancing and drumming raised pain tolerance, an accepted proxy for endorphin release, where passive listening did not. The proposed explanation for how music bonds large human groups, and directly relevant to why a drum circle feels the way it does.
Read the full study in Evolutionary Psychology · The study’s record at ora.ox.ac.uk
In-phase and anti-phase drumming, pain threshold and bonding (2017)
Laboratory experiment. Participants drummed alone, in time or deliberately out of time with a partner. Both exertion and coordinated rhythm influenced pain threshold change and reported bonding, though the synchrony picture was more complicated than synchrony always winning.
Read the full study at PubMed · frontiersin.org’s write-up of the study
Synchronised drumming activates the brain’s reward system (2011)
Laboratory fMRI experiment. Non-musicians drummed in or out of synchrony with a partner during brain scanning. Easy synchrony engaged the caudate, a core reward region, and that activity predicted whether the participant later helped their drumming partner: a plausible neural pathway from shared rhythm to friendship.
Read the full study in PLOS ONE · The study’s record at the University of Groningen
Hearts and hands in time: synchrony predicts group cohesion (2020)
Laboratory group study. Small groups drummed together at Bar-Ilan University while researchers measured both timing and cardiac synchrony. The more physiologically and behaviourally in step a group became, the more cohesive it felt, and physiological synchrony predicted later group performance.
Read the full study in Scientific Reports · The study’s record at Bar-Ilan University
Drumming in time is easy: why synchrony bonds (2023)
Experimental study. Participants reported that drumming in synchrony felt easier and produced stronger feelings of social connection, with reduced cognitive load proposed as the mechanism behind the familiar synchrony-and-bonding effect.
Read the full study via ResearchGate
The virtual drum circle (2024)
Extended reality study. Pairs drummed together remotely through avatars at Ghent University. Musical context improved timing and experienced agency, and richer visual coupling increased the sense of shared agency, suggesting some social ingredients of group rhythm can survive technological mediation.
Read the full study in preprint, arXiv · Read the full study in Journal of New Music Research
Drumming as exercise
The case that drumming is physical activity, including for people who cannot manage conventional exercise.
African drumming as exercise and stress relief (2014)
Physiological study. Middle-aged experienced drummers and younger novices did forty minute djembe sessions at Stellenbosch University with blood pressure, lactate and heart rate measured throughout. Stress and anxiety scores fell in both groups, systolic blood pressure dropped in the older group, and the workload sat at low to moderate intensity: a route into exercise for people too unwell to start with conventional regimes.
Read the full study in Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine · Stellenbosch University’s write-up of the study
The energy cost of rock and pop drumming (2013)
Exercise physiology study. Fourteen drummers were tested in the laboratory and during live performance, averaging an estimated 623 kcal per hour at around 8 METs: genuinely vigorous exercise. The published measurement underneath the widely quoted drummer-fitness claims, and not a figure that transfers to gentle hand drumming.
Read the full study in International Journal of Sports Medicine · The study’s record at the University of Gloucestershire
The Clem Burke Drumming Project (2008 onwards)
Research programme. What began as physiological testing of Blondie’s drummer in rehearsal and on stage became a long-running programme on the physical and mental demands and benefits of drumming, and several of the King’s College neuroimaging studies above grew directly out of it.
the project’s own site’s write-up of the study · Far Out: Clem burke relationship between drumming and fitness
What drumming does to arm muscles, with and without sticks (2016)
EMG measurement study. Forty volunteers struck a drum by hand and with a stick at three intensities while electrodes recorded biceps and triceps activation. Playing by hand needed a wider range of motion and produced higher muscle activation, making hand drumming the more demanding choice for upper limb rehabilitation, depending on the target muscle.
Read the full study in Journal of Physical Therapy Science
Drumming and states of consciousness
Drum-induced trance and journeying, and what has actually been measured while it happens.
The neuroscience of shamanic trance (2021)
Controlled EEG study. The most rigorous study of drum-induced trance to date, from the University of Michigan’s Center for Consciousness Science. Experienced practitioners reported far stronger altered-state experiences than controls during drumming but not during classical music, with corresponding EEG changes in power, connectivity and signal diversity. The authors conclude that shamanic trance overlaps with, but is distinct from, the psychedelic state.
Read the full study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · KnoWEwell’s write-up of the study · the Consciousness and Healing Initiative: Shamanic state of consciousness
One journey, one heart: cardiac phases of a shamanic journey (undated case report)
Single case report. A single participant wore continuous ECG through shamanic journeying. The start of the drumming slowed the heart and raised heart rate variability, and the reported moment of shapeshifting raised both. The only study located that timestamps the phases of a journey against cardiac data.
Read the full study via PubMed Central
Further afield
Not health research, but useful for framing why rhythm reaches people the way it does.
Chimpanzees drum with rhythm, and each has a signature (2025)
Observational study. Analysis of 371 drumming bouts found wild chimpanzees drum on tree roots with regular rhythms and individually recognisable patterns, with western and eastern subspecies using different timing. The building blocks of human musicality appear to predate humanity by around six million years. An excellent opening for any workshop.
Read the full study in Current Biology · Science: Chimpanzee drumming may give clues roots rhythm · ScienceDaily’s write-up of the study