Irish researchers are involved in a major EU research project aimed which is exploring the links between music, its impact on our movement and our health.

The project, BeatHealth, is focusing on how rhythmic stimulation can improve mobility, and how this can benefit how we exercise and the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

Scientists have discovered that moving to a rhythm can boost motor performance and have an impact on our health.

The BeatHealth project aims to analyse this link and create a smartphone app capable of adapting musical rhythm to movement and physiological changes such as heart and respiratory rates. The project involves 24 scientists from NUI Maynooth, and from Belgium, France and Spain.

The researchers will analyse data compiled from regular, repeated bodily movement through real-time sensors.

The rhythmical output from the sensors will be used to subtly alter the beat of the music such that the runner feels they are running in time to it.

According to one of the researchers, Dr Tomas Ward from NUI Maynooth, the idea that the power of music and rhythm makes people feel better has been around for a long time.

"Science has now begun to seriously investigate how this phenomenon can be harnessed as a drug-free way of actually improving health. Music works on our autonomic nervous system, thus stimulating our sensations of wellbeing at a subconscious level, which led behavioural scientists to the exciting conclusion that music and rhythm could be the source of new therapeutic tools."

Dr Ward said the research at NUI Maynooth would focus on developing to develop the right technology to deliver these tools.

"Fortunately, recent innovations in mobile technology and sensors in the last 10 years mean that we can now deliver such therapies whenever the user or patient is free to practise them. Our research will have a major impact on how we exercise and on illness such as Parkinson's disease."

The BeatHealth project will be completed in three years and all data gathered will be made available online.