Frank Russo

Speech-in-noise, psychosocial, and heart rate variability outcomes of group singing or audiobook club interventions for older adults with unaddressed hearing loss: A SingWell Project multisite, random... Background Unaddressed age-related hearing loss is highly prevalent among older adults, typified by negative consequences for speech-in-noise perception and psychosocial wellbeing. There is promising ...

, and we hope our current @singwell.bsky.social longitudinal multisite will add clarity ... journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Speech-in-noise, psychosocial, and heart rate variability outcomes of group singing or audiobook club interventions for older adults with unaddressed hearing loss: A SingWell Project multisite, random... Background Unaddressed age-related hearing loss is highly prevalent among older adults, typified by negative consequences for speech-in-noise perception and psychosocial wellbeing. There is promising ...

The FFR findings contrast a recent multisite (Whiteford et al., 2025) that found no differences b/w musicians & non-musicians. A longitudinal RCT design may provide greater power than cross-sectional.

Both training groups outperformed controls.
FFR is often viewed as a marker of auditory encoding & fidelity — and our results suggest music-based interventions can enhance it, even in older adults with advanced hearing loss.

🎶 New RCT: Choir singing & music appreciation training improve speech-in-noise + FFRs in older adult hearing aid users.

Findings add evidence that music-based interventions can support listening—contrasting recent cross-sectional nulls. 👉 thieme-connect.com/products/ejo...

Age-related increased frontal activation in sentence comprehension reflects inefficiency, not compensation Cognitive aging is associated with increased prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity, often interpreted as either a compensatory mechanism or a sign of neura…

Congratulations to Maxime Perron for leading our latest publication on listening effort! 🧠👂 The title hints at a contrarian insight that challenges thinking about the nature of frontal activations observed in older adults under challenging listening conditions. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

SingWell's @thinkauditory.bsky.social was on BBC
@channel4.bsky.social #SecretsOfTheSuperagers series yesterday, offering a look at how group singing can help aging adults combat #hearingloss🦻

Older adults in his study saw a 10-20% gain in speech understanding after 10wks of choir 🗣️

#healthyaging

A four panel comic titled Bird Sounds. In panel 1, labeled thrush, a wood thrush sings its beautiful eeohlay song against a forest background. In panel 2, labeled wren, a winter wren delicately sings tweedly tweedly tweedly. In panel 3, labeled warbler, a yellow warbler delicately sings sweet sweet. In panel 4, labeled heron in a death metal font, a heron screams KRAAGH against a background of fire.

Bird sounds.

If you happen to be at #ICMPC18 in SaoPaulo, come visit me at Poster #48 this afternoon to learn more about this study and learn about how to get involved with @singwell.bsky.social

Comparing the biopsychosocial impact of group singing and yoga activities in older adults living with Parkinson’s disease - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Comparing the biopsychosocial impact of group singing and yoga activities in older adults living with Parkinson’s disease

Paper out Today in Scientific Reports 🥳: In a new study of people with Parkinson’s disease, both yoga and choir improved mood and reduced stress. But only group singing led to stronger feelings of social closeness and a surge in oxytocin
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Job alert -- the Department of Psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University is hiring a Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Mental Health. Rank = Full Professor. Provides $1M CAD per year for the term (inclusive of salary, benefits, and research expenses). Deadline is August 15, 2025.

New @SingWellProject study alert! 📢 Our paper in @FrontNeuro shows that group singing reduces cortisol and alpha amylase in patients with Parkinson's; In addition, pain threshold increases following singing were related to cortisol.
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....

Our new plate washer in action!

Congratulations to @karlinave.bsky.social @eehannon.bsky.social @auditoryjoel.bsky.social on advancing this registered report on tagging neural entrainment to beat (and meter) -- an immense amount of work on the part of the organizers and from the many contributing labs made this possible.

Please join us 12-1.30 ET this Friday for the SingWell Project's next seminar. Co-hosted with Choral Canada / Canada Choral. This seminar takes us back to our roots, focusing on singing to support hearing in people with #hearingloss. Featuring Ben Zendel and Sina Fallah.

Welcome to the Bluesky account for Stand Up for Science 2025!

Keep an eye on this space for updates, event information, and ways to get involved. We can't wait to see everyone #standupforscience2025 on March 7th, both in DC and locations nationwide!

#scienceforall #sciencenotsilence

Fascinating paper that is useful to share with undergrads or grads contemplating their next move in academia. Mentees trained in big groups have lower "survival rates" but they do have higher fecundity and citations. arxiv.org/pdf/2208.05304

Excited to share what should be my lab's last study published in 2024. We found that rhythm perception, pitch perception, and working memory all positively contribute to speech in noise for older adults with hearing loss. https://buff.ly/41Lctht

Speech-in-noise, psychosocial, and heart rate variability outcomes of group singing or audiobook club interventions for older adults with unaddressed hearing loss: A SingWell Project multisite, random... Background Unaddressed age-related hearing loss is highly prevalent among older adults, typified by negative consequences for speech-in-noise perception and psychosocial wellbeing. There is promising ...

Excited to see our Registered Report Protocol published online today. This 7-site study will assess whether group singing supports speech in noise and psychosocial wellbeing in older adults with hearing loss. www.singwell.ca #musicscience #hearing journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

YouTube video by Lung Health Foundation COPD Live 2024

KT/KMb activity last week for World COPD day on the topic of #singing and lung health. www.youtube.com/watch?v=23Ye...

The title page of the special issue, which reads "Introduction to the special issue on visual cognition and visuomotor control: A tribute to Mel Goodale" The authors of the Intro are: Jody C. Culham, Gavin Buckingham, Monika Harvey, Irene Sperandio, Ingrid S. Johnsrude

I feel so honored by the publication of this special issue of Neuropsychologia. Thanks so much to my friends and colleagues who put this together. And thanks to all the contributors. There are so many wonderful articles. I can't tell you how delighted I am. 🧪🧠 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

bird sounds

Honoured to be inducted to my Uni's Open Access Hall of Fame today! Grattitude to @DV_PhD who showed me that #OpenScience practices really aren't that hard and the staff @librarytmu for help getting started with our RShare repository @researchTMU @TMUPsych @arts_tmu

⁦@SingWellProject⁩ Speaker Series, Speaker Series | Ep.1, complete ⁦@researchTMU⁩ @ChoralCanada⁩ ⁦@uturnpd⁩ ⁦@arts_tmu⁩

It's been a real treat working with @SeanAGilmore1. He graduated today and I was there to hood him. 'Deaf gain in da house' @TMUPsych @arts_tmu

A randomized control trial to assess the effectiveness of music with auditory beat stimulation for reducing state anxiety in students with trait anxiety

osf.io/preprints/psya…

New preprint.

osf.io/preprints/psya…

Our latest fNIRS work presented at fNIRS 2024 in Birmingham, UK: "The effect on hearing aids on accuracy, response time and brain activation during speech emotion perception in older adults"

Great way to end the week! @SingWellProject PhD student, Alex Pachete, hits submit on new manuscript to Aphasiology: “Understanding group singing in older adults with aphasia from a psychosocial perspective”.  Behold the sweet feeling of accomplishment/relief 👏😅🎉

Musical training does not enhance neural sound encoding at early stages of the auditory system: A large-scale multisite investigation

biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Congrats to @SeanAGilmore1 who successfully defended his PhD yesterday —An Investigation into Vibrotactile Beat Perception in Deaf Individuals — And big 🙏🏼 to the examining committee who asked about the science and the story behind it. @john_iversen @MollyJHenry @coghearinglab