He also found that variation in the ability to perceive binaural beats correlated subtly with where individuals were in hormonal cycles. For example, Oster found strong data that diminished ability to hear binaural beats was an early predictor for Parkinson’s Disease. Medically, Oster saw potential in BBs not only to directly diagnose auditory impairments, but to identify surprising range of seemingly unrelated medical issues. In terms of research, he felt they could be used to explain features of our auditory system, including how we locate sounds spatially in our environment and selectively single-out individual sounds from background noise (see “cocktail party effect”). Oster viewed binaural beats as having value both for pure research and a diagnostic medical tool. While research in to binaural beats continued after that, the subject was viewed largely as no more than a scientific curiosity. Oster’s paper was landmark not so much for its laboratory findings, but in how it tied-together the isolated islands of research since Dove in a way that gave the subject a renewed relevance to modern scientific questions. Dove’s insight was to realize that since there is no acoustic mixing of the tones, the perceived beats must exist solely within the auditory system, specifically that part which processes binaural (e.g., “stereo”) sound. In 1839, German experimenter Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered that illusory “beats” are perceived when pure tones of slightly different frequency are separately and simultaneously presented to each ear. Research inspired by the article went on to show that binaural beats can induce a “frequency-following response” (FFR) in brainwave activity. The theme of the article is that the processing of binaural beats involves different neural pathways than conventional hearing.

Gnaural is an opensource programmable auditory binaural-beat generator, implementing the principle described in the October 1973 Scientific American article “Auditory Beats in the Brain” by Gerald Oster.

Binaural beats generator