Go Un-Pro Sunday Science 2026_02_01

Sunday Science 2026_02_01

Summary of Key Points, Decisions, and Next Steps by Speaker

Dr. Brent Laartz

Key Points and Decisions:

Entrainment involves the use of auditory or visual stimulation to influence brain wave patterns associated with different states of wakefulness, concentration, relaxation, and sleep.

Gamma waves (40 Hz) are associated with concentration and wakefulness, while theta and delta waves are associated with relaxation and sleep.

Multiple studies have shown that 40 Hz gamma wave entrainment, using either light sources or binaural beats, can have positive effects on Alzheimer's disease and cognition.

Theta wave entrainment, using either isochronic tones or binaural beats, can improve sleep quality and post-sleep state, as demonstrated in a study on young elite soccer players.

Next Steps:

Continue exploring the research on the effects of different brain wave entrainment techniques on sleep, cognition, and overall well-being.

Potentially incorporate these entrainment methods into personal practice or recommend them to patients, while emphasizing the importance of consulting with healthcare professionals before making any significant changes.

Expand the discussion on Sunday Science to cover a wider range of evidence-based approaches to improving health, diet, exercise, and longevity.

Announcer Lucas

[ 00:00:00,000 ]Welcome to Sunday Science, where we dive into a few recent scientific articles and their translation into our modern lives. Here is your host, Brent W. Lartz, M. D.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:10,980 ] All right, thank you for attending another episode of Sunday Science, where we are going to be talking about... Entrainment. So entrainment involves the use of either auditory or visual stimulation. Indifferent. Entrainment. patterns. So this involves a either a light source or something called isochronic beats, which would be just a monaural.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:45,140 ] auditory source or something called binaural beats which basically creates the same thing but it has to be with headphones creating a binaural input into the brain and by having a certain wavelength of sound or light.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:01:08,320 ] then you create this entrainment. So we know that there are different brain waves associated with certain types of wakefulness, concentration, or relaxation, or sleep. And these are the delta waves, theta waves, gamma waves, alpha waves. Alpha waves are associated with wakefulness. Gamma waves are associated with concentration. concentration and wakefulness and Then the theta and delta waves are associated with relaxation and sleep. So here's we're going to discuss] just a few different studies showing different effects on sleep and cognition.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:00,420 ] With the 40 hertz or gamma wave entrainment, so I'll show you a little bit of some examples of entrainment. I haven't used this specifically yet, but this is a light bulb that and you're not going to be able to possibly completely appreciate the different wave length or the the stimulation of this because you're probably seeing this on either 60 hertz or 120 hertz display.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:36,070 ] And if you're listening to this just on auditory. I have a light bulb. I'm switching it on. And on my end, this blinks approximately once every... 1 40th of a second so 40 times per second so 40 hertz you're going to just notice some blinking on the screen but it is not going to be possibly at 40 hertz it may be a difference between your 60 hertz and not. So this is just a light bulb that does it. There are various products out there that in can do the same thing.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:03:09,300 ] This is at 40 hertz, so we'll start with that 40 hertz and look up multiple studies. There are multiple studies associated with Alzheimer's disease and cognition. with this 40 hertz either light source or with a binaural beat in the headphones. I'm going to show you for... some example of this is a 5. 5 hertz isochronic tone, so it doesn't need to be in the Headphones.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:03:47,640 ] And this also has metal crystal bowls and rain associated with it. But it shows the 5. 5 hertz. This is associated with better sleep. I'll show you some— let's see, that's binaural. You can search this. I use YouTube Music. You can search this. Looking for gamma wave. This is—uh, let's see. This is Theta waves. So let me look for gamma wave and I'm going to look for isochronic. Beats. So isochronic tones.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:22,060 ] Would be ones that you would not need.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:29,290 ] And I'm not sure if you can hear that, but there's obviously some.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:38,050 ] Birds in the background. And if you listen really closely, you can hear. A beat.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:53,400 ] and that is approximately 40 hertz gamma waves isochronic.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:00,540 ] Okay, so let's see if I can find another one.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:05,850 ] This is binaural.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:09,090 ] Let's see what this one has.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:14,330 ] Yeah.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:30,860 ] This doesn't have it.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:42,710 ] This is 45 hertz binaural.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:47,650 ] Pure gamma waves. Let's see if this has a better. Here we go. This is better. This doesn't have the added music to it.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:57,310 ] This is basically a beat 1/40 of a second. And 40 times per second.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:04,780 ] This is associated with some of the studies are using 10 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes of listening to this every day. Potentially this can increase concentration also while you're studying and learning.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:21,450 ] And I'll show you just a quick show of. This study, which was all right, so this study, which is using binaural beats, um Using... Let's pull this up here.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:46,200 ] There's hundreds of studies out there. This is a study showing gamma frequency entrainment, attenuating amyloid load, and it modified the microglia. This, these patients.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:02,480 ] We're exposed to the 40 Hertz.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:11,640 ] Binaural beats.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:17,430 ] Let's see. Let's get this. This is attenuating.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:57,220 ] Game of Stimulation showing improved sleep in Alzheimer's disease. They did continuous actigraphy recordings. So this is basically using... Studies of their sleep there was a study in 2025 by Chan which showed that, overall, putting a 40 hertz binaural beat into place in Alzheimer's disease improved their Mini Mental Status Exam, their different exams related to dementia and cognition, the CDR test, the FAS test, and the ADS Cog Test. All of these improve with respect to Um, after the load of all signs of these and I'll show you just another study showing the improvement in sleep with theta entrainment. So there's delta and theta entrainment you can do but this, let me show you an example.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:11,180 ] Let me share.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:28,040 ] This, as you can see, I'm sharing a screenshot of.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:31,910 ] Somatic complaints after theta entrainment. So again, using either binaural beats or isochronic beats. In general, sleep is not using light source. But this, before bedtime, showed an improvement in somatic complaints in patients given theta entrainment before sleep for about 20 to 30 minutes before sleep. This study was, let me share a different.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:09,540 ] Screen here showing: This is showing previous.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:23,349 ] Awakening quality. So the quality of wakefulness after you after you wake up, and this is subjective, but these patients and these study subjects who were sports-related subjects in a university, they had better awakening quality. They also, okay, so we also had another area here where they, the subjective sleep quality. Market improvement in sleep quality. So, from a score of 10 up to 25.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:03,580 ] So you can see exactly what has happened here.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:08,890 ] All right, so. Hopefully, you were able to see that on the screen.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:15,300 ] This was from, I'll share the exact.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:19,690 ] Study that that came from.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:24,880 ] This was Brainwave Entrainment for Better Sleep and Post-Sleep State of Young Elite Soccer Players, a pilot study. So you can see this was in the journal.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:39,890 ] European Journal of Sports Science. They were trying to assess whether there was some improvement in their Sports ability afterwards as well. I think they didn't necessarily show that per se, but. Definitely showed better sleep quality using the theta entrainment. All right. So, thank you very much. This is really just a short episode here of Sunday Science because I'm getting into this uh before sleep using a theta entrainment of either light or or an oral source that's a Ural source of theta entrainment and maybe delta entrainment. There are different studies.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:12:29,550 ] Fascinating. Area of research that we can delve into more. As we go along here. I appreciate you visiting us. And. We will be.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:12:45,500 ] Showing a lot more.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:12:47,910 ] Evidence-based medicine. Showing how you can improve your sleep. Improve your diet. Improve your exercise quality. Uh, and. Your creativity and increasing longevity.

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