Why Binaural Beats Are Now Being Studied for Chronic Pain — And What the Research Shows
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Pain may begin in the body, but the experience of pain is ultimately constructed and interpreted by the brain.
That distinction is becoming increasingly important as neuroscientists investigate chronic pain.
For decades, pain management has largely centered on treating its physical source and reducing pain signals through medications, procedures, rehabilitation, or other interventions. Those approaches remain important. But a growing body of neuroscience is examining another part of the equation: the way the brain processes, amplifies, predicts, and responds to pain signals.
One emerging area of research involves binaural beats and brainwave entrainment.
Could changing patterns of neural activity influence the way pain is experienced?
Researchers are beginning to explore that question.
What Are Binaural Beats?
Binaural beats are an auditory phenomenon created when slightly different frequencies are presented separately to each ear through stereo headphones.
For example, if one ear receives a 200 Hz tone and the other receives a 210 Hz tone, the listener may perceive a rhythmic difference of approximately 10 Hz.
That difference falls within the alpha brainwave range, generally defined as approximately 8–13 Hz.
The brain does not literally begin operating at one single frequency. Instead, researchers are interested in whether rhythmic auditory stimulation can influence or synchronize aspects of ongoing neural oscillatory activity, a process commonly discussed within the broader field of brainwave entrainment.
And that possibility becomes especially interesting when we look at the neuroscience of pain.
Chronic Pain Is More Than a Signal From the Body
Pain is not simply a direct measurement of tissue damage.
The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as both a sensory and emotional experience. The brain continuously interprets incoming sensory information alongside attention, emotion, memory, expectation, context, and previous experiences.
In chronic pain, these processing systems can change over time.
One process researchers study is central sensitization, in which the central nervous system becomes increasingly responsive to sensory input. Signals that once produced a relatively normal response may become amplified, and the nervous system can remain unusually reactive even after an initial injury has healed.
In simple terms, the brain and nervous system may become increasingly efficient at producing a pain response.
Researchers are now examining whether changes in the brain’s electrical rhythms are part of that altered pain-processing state.
The Brainwave Connection: Alpha, Beta, Theta and Pain
Billions of neurons communicate through electrical activity that can be measured through electroencephalography, or EEG. Researchers commonly organize patterns of this activity into frequency bands, including delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma.
Pain appears to interact with these oscillations in complex ways.
Research has associated pain perception with changes in alpha activity, while studies of chronic pain have identified alterations spanning theta, alpha, beta, and gamma frequencies. Importantly, there does not appear to be one universal “chronic pain brainwave pattern” across every condition or individual.
That nuance matters.
For example, research has found that suppression of spontaneous alpha activity can occur during painful stimulation, while other chronic pain studies have identified changes in alpha frequency or power associated with pain sensitivity. More recent large-scale EEG research likewise suggests that chronic pain involves complex network-level activity rather than a simple shift from one frequency band to another. (ScienceDirect)
The takeaway is not that alpha brainwaves simply “turn pain off.”
Rather, alpha oscillations appear to participate in the neural systems involved in sensory processing, attention, inhibition, and pain perception.
That makes alpha activity an intriguing target for neuromodulation and brainwave entrainment research.
What Does the Research Say About Binaural Beats and Pain?
A significant review of the evidence was published in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies in 2024.
Researchers Fatemeh Shamsi, Fatemeh Azadinia, and Maryam Shaygan conducted a systematic review examining whether binaural auditory beats could affect pain perception in adults experiencing acute or chronic pain.
The researchers evaluated 16 randomized clinical studies, including 13 involving acute pain and three involving chronic pain. (Springer)
Their conclusion was promising, but appropriately cautious.
The review identified binaural beats using alpha frequencies or combinations ranging from delta through alpha as a potential non-pharmacological intervention for reducing acute pain in certain medical settings.
However, the studies varied considerably in their methods, patient populations, pain conditions, and interventions. Most also carried a high risk of bias, and the overall quality of evidence was rated low to very low.
For chronic pain specifically, the researchers concluded that additional high-quality research is necessary before efficacy can be established. (Springer)
That distinction is important.
The research does not currently tell us that binaural beats are a treatment for chronic pain.
It tells us something arguably more interesting from a neuroscience perspective:
Auditory stimulation designed to influence neural rhythms may have the ability to alter aspects of pain perception, and the effect is significant enough to warrant further investigation.
Why Alpha Frequencies Are Getting Attention
Why would researchers be interested in the alpha range?
Alpha oscillations have long been associated with relaxed wakefulness, but their neurological role extends far beyond relaxation.
Alpha activity is involved in regulating information flow, attention, cortical excitability, and sensory processing. One theory proposes that alpha oscillations help the brain inhibit information that is currently unnecessary or irrelevant.
Pain competes aggressively for attention.
When something hurts, the brain prioritizes that signal. This makes biological sense in acute situations: pain tells us that something may be wrong and demands a response.
But chronic pain presents a different challenge.
When pain persists for months or years, neural systems involved in attention, salience, emotion, and sensory processing can become altered. Researchers have therefore become increasingly interested in whether influencing oscillatory brain activity could help modify some of the neural processes associated with the pain experience.
The relationship remains complex, and researchers are still determining exactly which frequencies, stimulation methods, durations, and patient populations may respond best.
Brainwave Entrainment Research Goes Beyond Pain
Binaural beats are only one form of brainwave entrainment.
A broader 2024 integrative review published in Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback examined 84 studies involving brainwave entrainment.
Researchers Francisco J. Cidral-Filho, Nathalia Nahas Donatello, and Patrick K. Porter reviewed studies involving approaches including auditory and audiovisual stimulation.
Across the literature, brainwave entrainment was associated with reported improvements in areas including:
- Pain
- Sleep disturbances
- Mood disorders
- Cognition
- Neurodegenerative conditions
The authors nevertheless emphasized the need for larger sample sizes, stronger control groups, and additional randomized clinical trials before stronger therapeutic conclusions can be drawn. (PubMed)
This is particularly relevant to chronic pain because pain rarely exists in isolation.
Persistent pain can affect sleep. Poor sleep can increase pain sensitivity. Pain can increase stress and emotional distress, while heightened stress can make the nervous system more reactive.
Rather than functioning as completely separate problems, pain, sleep, mood, attention, and nervous-system regulation interact through overlapping neural networks.
That is one reason researchers are interested in interventions capable of influencing broader patterns of brain activity.
From Binaural Beats to Multi-Sensory Brain Entrainment
Most binaural-beat studies examine auditory stimulation alone.
But brainwave entrainment does not necessarily have to rely on a single sensory pathway.
The brain continuously integrates auditory, visual, sensory, emotional, and cognitive information. This has led to growing interest in multimodal approaches to brainwave entrainment that combine more than one type of rhythmic or guided stimulus.
This is where platforms such as BrainTap take a broader approach.
BrainTap combines synchronized audio and light stimulation with binaural beats, isochronic tones, music, and guided visualization. The BrainTap headset uses pulsed light synchronized with auditory elements rather than relying exclusively on binaural audio. (BrainTap)
The concept is to engage multiple sensory pathways during the same session.
From a neuroscience perspective, this raises an interesting research question: Could multimodal entrainment influence neural states differently than auditory stimulation alone?
The broader brainwave-entrainment literature provides a reason to continue investigating that possibility, but it is important not to assume that results from standalone binaural-beat studies automatically apply to a specific multimodal device.
More direct research is needed.
The Bigger Shift in Pain Neuroscience
Perhaps the most important development is not binaural beats themselves.
It is the changing scientific understanding of pain.
Modern neuroscience increasingly recognizes pain as a dynamic experience involving communication between the body, spinal cord, brain, autonomic nervous system, attention systems, emotions, memories, expectations, and environment.
That opens the door to a much broader conversation about pain management.
Pharmaceuticals and medical interventions remain essential tools, particularly when pain has an identifiable physiological cause. But researchers are simultaneously investigating complementary strategies that target the brain’s processing of pain.
Brainwave entrainment belongs to that emerging category.
It is non-invasive.
It can be delivered through auditory or audiovisual stimulation.
And early research suggests it may influence some of the neurological processes associated with pain perception.
The evidence is not yet strong enough to position binaural beats as a proven chronic pain therapy. But it is strong enough to explain why scientists continue studying them.
The Future of Pain Management May Include the Brain
And because the brain is an active participant in that experience, understanding how neural activity changes during pain may ultimately give researchers additional ways to influence it.
Binaural beats and brainwave entrainment represent one emerging piece of that research.
The 2024 systematic review by Shamsi, Azadinia, and Shaygan suggests binaural auditory stimulation may have potential as a non-pharmacological approach to pain, particularly acute pain, while making clear that stronger evidence is still needed for chronic pain. (Springer)
Meanwhile, broader research into brainwave entrainment is examining its relationship with pain, sleep, mood, cognition, and other dimensions of human health. (PubMed)
The next question is not whether pain exists “in the body” or “in the brain.”
It exists within a nervous system in which the two are inseparable.
And as neuroscience learns more about that system, technologies designed to influence neural states through sound, light, and other forms of sensory stimulation may become an increasingly important area of research.
Pain is not just a signal from the body. It is an experience shaped by the brain. And understanding the brain may give us new ways to change that experience.
References
Shamsi F, Azadinia F, Shaygan M. Does brain entrainment using binaural auditory beats affect pain perception in acute and chronic pain?: a systematic review. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies. 2024;24:34. DOI: 10.1186/s12906-024-04339-y. (Springer)
Cidral-Filho FJ, Donatello NN, Porter PK. An Integrative Review of Brainwave Entrainment Benefits for Human Health. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. (PubMed)
Peng W, Tang D. Pain Related Cortical Oscillations: Methodological Advances and Potential Applications. Research examining the relationship between oscillatory neural activity and pain perception.
BrainTap. The Science Behind BrainTap. Information on BrainTap’s approach to brainwave entrainment, light frequencies, beats and tones, and guided visualization. (BrainTap)
This article is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition. Brainwave entrainment should not replace evaluation or treatment from a qualified healthcare professional.
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