The neuroesthetics of music as an alternative therapeutic model for enhancing youth mental wellbeing

Youth mental health challenges have escalated worldwide, particularly during adolescence and early adulthood, two critical developmental stages marked by pronounced neural plasticity, effective responsiveness, and the formation of social identity. Drawing on interdisciplinary research published in the last decade, this article critically reviews the neuroesthetics of music as an alternative and complementary therapeutic approach to promoting youth mental wellbeing. Integrating insights from neuroscience, music therapy, psychology, and cultural studies, the review examines how musical engagements activate and regulate interconnected neural systems, including the limbic, prefrontal, motor, and autonomic networks, thereby shaping reward processing, emotional regulation, stress modulation, and social bonding. Empirical studies from the past decade indicate that both passive listening and active music-making encompassing rhythm-centered interventions and movement-based practices are associated with significant reductions in anxiety and depressive symptoms, alongside improvements in attention, emotional resilience, and interpersonal synchrony. The analysis further emphasizes the cultural situatedness of musical experience, demonstrating that therapeutic outcomes are amplified when interventions are grounded in culturally embedded traditions such as Indian raga frameworks, Afro-Brazilian rhythmic practices, and community-oriented musical participation. In addition, the article reviews recent methodological developments, including multimodal neuroimaging, psychophysiological measures, and emerging AI-assisted adaptive sound systems, all of which enhance the precision, scalability, and personalization of music-based therapies. Taken together, this synthesis positions neuroesthetic approaches to music as a neurobiologically informed, culturally responsive, and economically accessible model with considerable potential to strengthen contemporary youth mental health interventions across diverse global contexts.