Binaural Beat Stimulation for Cognitive and Psychological Enhancement in Alzheimer's Disease: A Pilot Study.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that impairs cognitive and psychological performance and adversely impacts daily routines and activities. We hypothesized that Binaural beat stimulation (BBS) enhances psychological performance by increasing connectivity in the $\theta $ -and $\alpha $ -bands over the fronto-parietal region. Twenty-five AD patients received either Binaural beat (BBS) or Standard Auditory beat stimulation (SAS) for 12 consecutive days. Psychometric assessments (Blessed Dementia Scale, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, and Mini-Mental State Examination) and a 38-channel EEG were conducted on Day 1 and Day 14. Independent t-tests (p< 0.05) compared the pre- and post-states of both groups. The neurological analysis was conducted using brain functional connectivity, including imaginary coherence and graph-theory parameters. Two-way ANOVA examined the effects of group and intervention on behavioral and connectivity outcomes, while Pearson's correlation assessed the relationship between behavioral improvements and graph-theoretical metrics. The findings reveal significant changes in the network dynamics of the BBS group, including increased long-range $\theta $ -band connectivity and enhanced local $\alpha $ -band processing. These neural changes corresponded with improved cognitive and daily functioning, reflected by decreased BDS and DASS-21 scores and increased MMSE scores. This highlights the positive impact of BBS on AD patients' neurological, psychological, and behavioral responses, suggesting a promising intervention for cognitive and psychological advancement in AD.