Voices from the Field: Indre Viskontas

In this installment of Voices from the Field, we speak with Dr. Indre Viskontas—neuroscientist, opera stage director, and president of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity—about how music and creativity function as precision tools in advancing health and human connection. Drawing on her experience across disciplines, she discusses the unique power of aesthetic experience, the challenges of bridging research and practice, and the importance of equitable access to the arts.

What first inspired you to explore the connection between the arts, health, and/or science? 

My journey to the intersection of arts, health, and science began with a rejection. At six years old, I auditioned for the Toronto Children's Chorus and was rejected for not singing in tune. Shortly after, though, I found my home in the Canadian Children's Opera Chorus. By eleven, I was making my debut on the professional opera stage as an altar boy in Tosca, and I was utterly hooked. Opera was my safe space, where I could be my authentic self, even in costume. Whenever I was feeling psychological pain, I found catharsis and peace in performance.  

Alongside my musical journey, I discovered the writings of the late neurologist Oliver Sacks in high school. His ability to illuminate what’s universal about our brains through individual patient case studies inspired me to become a neuroscientist while also continuing my path as an opera singer. Eventually, I found an intersection of these disparate fields: I could leverage my performance skills to bring neuroscience to the public while using neuroscience to help musicians develop more effective practice strategies.

Early in my research career, I had the opportunity to work with him on a case study, and his influence has continued to touch my work: the first opera I ever directed was The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and I co-wrote and hosted the Audible podcast Radiant Minds: The World of Oliver Sacks in collaboration with the Oliver Sacks Foundation. For one of the episodes, I interviewed his long-time friend and colleague, pioneering music therapist, Connie Tomaino. Welcoming her to the hospital where they first met, he quoted the poet Novalis: "Every disease is a musical problem. Its cure? A musical solution." I think we’re finally understanding how prescient he was, as we witness the exponential growth in scientific publications examining music's impact on health and wellbeing, which I’ve had the pleasure of documenting in my role as Director of Communications for the Sound Health Network over the past five years. 

In your view, what makes the arts and aesthetic experiences uniquely powerful tools for advancing health and wellbeing—and how does your work contribute to translating that potential into practice?

The arts, and music in particular, offer something uniquely powerful in healthcare: they give us the opportunity to lean into and let go of the things that are too painful to put into words. Music isn't just a series of notes—it's the tag our brains give to a subjective experience of sound perception that pulls in various brain regions and networks, combining what we hear with what we know, remember, and feel. When a brain turns a soundwave into a musical perception, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts, and if we’re lucky, under the right circumstances, we can experience a piece of our complex selves reflected in the music that we hadn’t been able to access in any other way.  

In my role as Principal Investigator at the Creative Brain Lab at the University of San Francisco, and as Chief Science Officer at Reverberation (co-founded by musician Peter Gabriel), I approach music and creativity in general as precision tools—where a specific application exists for each usage and user. I strive to find ways to demonstrate that everyone is creative – they just don’t always know how to optimally tap into it. I also am passionate about crafting and understanding how creative experiences affect us, from bringing us closer to one another, to helping us maximize creative problem solving, which is going to be even more critical given the challenges that our society is facing. 

While teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, I pioneered the application of neuroscience to musical training, helping performers understand how to practice more effectively. My book How Music Can Make You Better translates complex neuroscience into practical applications, while my speaking engagements and creativity workshops for diverse audiences—from the International Monetary Fund to synthetic biologists—spread understanding of how creativity works in the brain and how to enhance it.

What challenges do you see in building a more cohesive and equitable neuroarts ecosystem? 

The neuroarts field faces several significant challenges. First, there's still a persistent gap between research and implementation. We have increasingly strong evidence for art's benefits, but incorporating these findings into standard healthcare practices, education systems, and community programs requires institutional changes that are often slow to materialize.

Second, access to music interventions and other forms of creative expression remains inequitable. Those who might benefit most—particularly in underserved communities—often have the least access. While research shows that children with more than three years of musical training have better executive functioning skills than their non-musical peers, and that kids enrolled in music programs in high-truancy areas are more likely to graduate, these opportunities aren't distributed equally.

Third, there's the challenge of establishing and maintaining rigorous standards while allowing for innovation. The field needs to balance evidence-based approaches with space for creative exploration, and this tension can sometimes impede progress.

Finally, securing sustainable funding remains difficult. Despite growing recognition of music's value in health contexts, financial support often comes in short-term grants rather than through structural integration into healthcare systems or educational budgets.

As president of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity, I work to address these challenges by building collaborations across disciplines, bringing our research into the corporate sphere,  and advocating for both rigorous research and equitable access to creativity and arts interventions.

What kinds of support, collaboration, or infrastructure would most help you expand and/or scale your work? What are existing resources that you have found most useful? 

To expand and scale our work in the neuroarts field, we need several key supports. First, sustainable, long-term funding models are essential—not just for research, but for implementation and community-based programs. The recent increase in funding for research is encouraging, but we need matching investments in bringing these findings to communities.

Second, we need stronger infrastructure connecting research institutions, healthcare providers, educational systems, and arts organizations. The Sound Health Network and the NeuroArts Blueprint have been invaluable in beginning to build these connections, but we need more robust pathways for knowledge exchange and collaboration.

Third, technology offers tremendous potential. With the proliferation of wearable neurotechnology, we're approaching the ability to track music's impact on our brains and bodies in real time, without leaving the stage or concert hall. These tools, powered by AI, can provide real-time feedback as we personalize and calibrate musical experiences to fit individual needs. But developing, interpreting and deploying these technologies requires cross-sector partnerships.

I've found the collaborative networks built through organizations like the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity and this very Neuroarts Resource Center to be incredibly valuable resources. These connections allow us to share knowledge, pool resources, and advocate collectively for the importance of arts in health and wellbeing. But we still need to do the work to bridge the gap between research and implementation. 

Looking ahead, what is one bold idea or hope that you have for the future of neuroarts? 

My bold hope for the future of neuroarts is a cultural renaissance where creative artmaking becomes recognized as essential to human health and development—and as important, though for different purposes, as education and skill-building. I envision a society where making music and other forms of art is not considered a specialized skill for the talented few, but a basic human capacity that everyone is encouraged to develop and express throughout their lifespan. With GenAI tools available now, compassion and creativity are going to be primary human traits that we need to cherish and cultivate. 

In this future, creative expression would be integrated into healthcare protocols, from prenatal care through end-of-life support. Schools would provide substantive music education not as an extracurricular luxury but as core curriculum, alongside a comprehensive creativity training regimen. Urban planning would include acoustic considerations and spaces for community music-making, and for creative expression in many forms. 

We are entering a new era of understanding the role of creativity in our lives, and we're rediscovering what our ancestors knew 40,000 years ago when they carved flutes from bones. Music is part of every life stage—from how we interact with infants to reconnecting with loved ones in the late stages of dementia. So too is creativity, as we are born with a drive to explore. With growing evidence of music's benefits and its potential to mitigate the loneliness epidemic plaguing our societies, I believe we'll see not just a greater appreciation for music's power but a transformation in how we see ourselves—as musicians, makers of music, from the sunrise to the sunset of our lives. 

Beyond music, we are learning so much more about how to be our most creative selves, how to build environments that foster collaboration and creativity, and how to leverage our innate curiosity for the betterment of society. In this future I envision, we will harness the full spectrum of the arts’ neurological effects not just as treatments, but as prevention and a path to flourishing—creating a better world for ourselves and the generations to come.