Effect of Beta-Frequency Binaural Beats on Cognitive Control in Healthy Adults

Cognitive control encompasses some core cognitive qualities like taking the appropriate time to think before acting on a decision, efficiently dealing with novel and unanticipated challenges, resisting temptations, and staying focused. Response inhibition, conflict control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility are some of the sub-cognitive processes which have a detrimental effect on the cognitive control of an individual. There has been a considerable amount of research on different methods/interventions through which cognitive control could be enhanced through time. But the effect of beta-frequency binaural beats on cognitive control is lacking and much needed in the literature. In this research, our main objective is to evaluate repercussions of beta range binaural beats on cognitive control of healthy adults. Subjects were divided into two groups— experimental and sham. Individuals in the experimental condition were exposed to beta-frequency binaural beats (25 Hz) for 20 min. Both the groups then executed a computerized version of the Stroop task. Behavioral measures (Accuracy, reaction time) and various event-related potentials (ERP) features like P300 and N400 were extracted and considered for analysis. Data analysis revealed that the participants in the experimental group recorded higher accuracy and slower reaction times in the Stroop task compared to the sham condition. The behavioral results were also complemented by higher averaged P300 amplitudes and lower N400 amplitudes recorded for the experimental condition compared to the sham condition. We intend to use these results as substantial evidence to imply beta-frequency binaural beats as an effective means of enhancement of cognitive control in healthy adults over sham controlled, longitudinal studies.