Rebecca Lepping

Discipline: 
Researcher
Musician/artist
Organization/Affiliation (no abbreviation): 
University of Kansas Medical Center
Location: 
Kansas City, KS 66160
United States
Short biography and a description of your interest(s) in music and health: 
I am a cognitive neuroscientist (PhD) and musician (MA) who is passionate about the power of music to affect us, improve our well being, and make our lives better. I am interested in understanding who, what, why, when, and where music makes the biggest impact on our health. The "who" is understanding variability of effects between people, and what those individual differences are that make music a more effective treatment for some people than for others. The "what" is the specificity of the musical elements that make the difference. What components of the music itself are important for effecting change. "Where" would be to determine differences in effectiveness in targeted locations where music is experienced. "When" measures effectiveness by targeted timing or combination with other therapies. And finally, "how" would be the underlying mechanisms of effect within the brain and body. My primary research interest is in affective neuroscience, specifically the intersection of emotion-processing and decision-making. To understand how those processes interact, I study emotion and reward processing in various forms across a range of health issues, including how emotion in music is represented in the brains of healthy and individuals with mood disorders. My program of research aims to study why individuals choose to engage with music, and how they use music as a rewarding stimulus to regulate their mood states and experience of pain. By combining scientific methodology, including neuroimaging techniques, with music theory, my research investigates how information is transmitted through the musical medium, how listeners parse that information in a meaningful way, and how music impacts the central nervous system in humans. By combining music and science, I believe we can reach people to make a difference.
Collaboration Interests: 
Current collaborations and projects include infant auditory development in premature infants in the NICU, analgesic effects of music for people suffering from fibromyalgia, dopaminergic activation in patients with Parkinson’s disease, singing interventions for lung function and mood for patients with COPD, and mood regulation for people suffering from depression/anxiety. I am also interested in collaborations to study the effects of music for people who are suffering from stress, who are aging, or generally, who have a nervous system (!)
Keywords: 
fMRI, brain, music, cognitive neurocsience, emotion, aging