Genius Song · 40 Hz

Genius Song is a seven-minute listen. The 40 Hz mouse work used hours.

JM Thomas · 20 August 2026

You put the headphones on and press play. The track is about seven minutes.

Mouse labs used a light that flashed forty times a second for a whole hour, and later a sound that clicked on and off for days. Shoppers then ask whether that file matches the lab hour. Researchers later added clicking speakers beside flicker lamps so the mice got light and sound together.

What is Genius Song?

Genius Song is a digital audio file you play through headphones, and the usual run is about seven minutes. You sit down and press play. You stay until the track ends, and that is the whole practice.

I send people to Genius Song. I am an affiliate, so I get a commission if you buy through that link.

The sales page talks about binaural beats, which means two different tones, one in each ear. The page also talks about creativity and learning. I have not opened that file in a lab, and nobody posted a picture of the sound waves on this page, so I do not guess what is inside the track. I am telling you how people use it.

Write a number from 1 to 10 before you press play if you want one, then write it again when the track ends. That number belongs to you.

How does a binaural beat work?

A binaural beat uses two close tones, one in the left ear and a slightly different tone in the right ear. You hear a pulse at the gap between those two tones, and you hear that pulse inside your head. Nobody is playing that pulse in the room.

Hertz is how many times a sound shakes in one second, and people write it Hz. If the left ear is 400 hertz and the right ear is 440 hertz, the gap is 40 shakes a second, so you hear a 40 Hz pulse. You still need the headphones so each ear keeps its own tone, because that pulse only shows up when the two ears stay apart. If you play both tones through one speaker, the tones mix in the air before they reach you.

Wikipedia has a short page on binaural beats if you want the public write-up.

Brain Song is the other name people search for the same kind of listen. If Brain Song is already on your phone, keep using it. If you are buying today, I still send you to Genius Song. The side-by-side is on Brain Song vs Genius Song.

What does 40 Hz mean?

Hertz is how many times a sound shakes in one second, so 40 Hz means the sound shakes forty times each second. A piano note shakes hundreds of times a second, and forty is a slow pulse you can almost count if you watch a light flicker. Labs picked 40 Hz because it sits in a brain rhythm called gamma, which is a fast rhythm people measure with sensors on the scalp.

The mouse papers used 40 Hz on purpose. They also tried other flicker speeds, and those other speeds missed the amyloid drop that 40 Hz made. Amyloid is a sticky protein that can build up in those mouse brains.

What did the mouse labs use?

Iaccarino and Tsai's group published in Nature in 2016. They used Alzheimer-model mice. Alzheimer's is a disease where memory fades and a sticky protein can build up in the brain, and those mice were raised so that protein builds up. The protein is called amyloid.

They used 40 Hz. They first used optogenetics, a lab trick that puts a light-sensitive switch into cells and then shines light to turn those cells on. Then they used a light that flickered forty times a second. One hour of that flicker cut amyloid in the visual cortex, the part of the brain that sees. After a single session, researchers saw the protein come back within 24 hours, so one hour helped in that session and the drop did not hold until the next day.

Martorell and the same Tsai group published in Cell in 2019. They used 40 Hz tone trains. A tone train is a sound that pulses on and off, forty times a second, and you already hear that pulse from the speaker. Each ear does not need its own tone, so that is a different tool from a classic binaural pair.

Researchers saw activity rise in the auditory cortex, the part of the brain that hears, and they also saw activity in hippocampal CA1, a memory area inside the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the part of the brain people use for new memories. They ran the work for seven days. When they added 40 Hz light to the sound, more of the outer cortex joined in. The outer cortex is the folded surface of the brain.

They named the method GENUS, which stands for Gamma Entrainment Using Sensory Stimulation. In plain English, GENUS is a lab method that uses light and sound at 40 Hz.

MIT News covered later human work on 14 March 2025. That story is about 40 Hz stimulation and brain health in people, and it does not say a seven-minute song raises IQ.

Do you keep the seven-minute track?

Yes. Keep Genius Song. Put the headphones on and press play, and stay until the track ends.

The mouse labs used hours of a 40 Hz pulse, light or sound. One session was an hour, and another run lasted seven days. You can want both stories. You can keep the seven-minute track and still care about the hour they ran.

If you want the hour-long 40 Hz lab story, it is on the 40 Hz page.

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