Discussion
pain
Our results show that participants felt less pain while actively tapping to music, compared with merely listening to music. This finding indicates that sensorimotor synchronization to music has analgesic effects. Compared to music listening without tapping, tapping to music elicited a moderate pain-reducing effect, and compared to the silent control condition without tapping, tapping to music elicited a large, clinically significant [Notably, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that sensorimotor synchronization to music reduces pain by virtue of EOS activation [We also investigated potential mechanisms underlying the analgesic effects of sensorimotor synchronization to music. So far, the (causal) mechanisms underlying the pain-reducing effects of (passive) music listening are not fully understood, but previous work has implicated attentional and emotional mechanisms as the two main candidates [Additionally, since pain-reduction is commonly used as a proxy of EOS activation [