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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1569609

This article is part of the Research Topic The Arts Therapies and Neuroscience View all 20 articles

A Scoping Review of Integrated Arts Therapies and Neuroscience Research

Provisionally accepted
  • California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University-San Diego, San Diego, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This article provided a scoping review of the current state of the field for integrated arts therapies and neuroscience research. The main arts therapies modalities included in this review were: of arts therapies (i.e. drawing, painting, sculpting, bibliotherapy, cinema therapy, dance movement therapies, drama therapies, music therapies, neuroaesthetics, phototherapies, and poetry) The main objectives of this integrated arts therapies and neuroscience scoping review were to: 1) include multiple modalities of arts therapies,2) summarize, synthesize, compare, and contrast populations, settings, presenting problems, methods, modalities, measures, and outcomes, 3) discuss implications, and 4) suggest future directions. The design for this scoping review was conducted according to PRISMA-ScR (Tricco et al., 2018) and the JBI Scoping Review Manual (Peters et al., 2021) standardized recommendations.Eligibility criteria included: English language, peer-review, integration of arts therapies and neuroscience, and use of research methodologies such as case studies, quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, systematic or scoping reviews, and meta-analyses.Articles were gathered from two online databases (EBSCOHost and PubMed) using keywords, and review of articles from reference lists. Publications that met criteria were reviewed and charted for the following information: author, year of publication, sample size and characteristics, research design, data analyses, modality (i.e. intervention, treatment), and outcomes. This scoping review included 84 publications that met inclusion criteria, after the research team discussed to consensus. Outcomes suggested improvements in brain activity and integration, cognitive, affective, sensory, and social functioning, memory reconsolidation, psychological symptoms, affect, and behavior.Interpretations were limited in that most publications lacked directionality in their approach, were exploratory, and dependent on researcher assumptions, expertise, and access to instruments and populations. Therefore, more research is needed on each modality that upholds stronger research methodology, and can develop focus across researchers. While this scoping review was able to summarize and synthesize the state of the field, it is still too early to be able to compare outcomes or make more solid conclusions about specific neuroscientific processes and benefits for each individual modality. This body of knowledge provided valuable implications for the field and made suggestions for future directions.

    Keywords: Scoping review, Art Therapy, arts therapies, Neuroscience, Modalities

    Received: 01 Feb 2025; Accepted: 03 Apr 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Bokoch, Hass-Cohen, Espinoza, O'Reilly and Levi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Rebecca Bokoch, California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University-San Diego, San Diego, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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