What felt sound does.

Vibroacoustic stimulation

Low frequency sound delivered through a surface into the body was formalised by Olav Skille in Norway in the 1980s and studied clinically by Tony Wigram in the 1990s. Reviews since then (Boyd-Brewer and McCaffrey 2004; Punkanen and Ala-Ruona 2012; Bartel and Mosabbir 2021) find consistent short-term effects on self-reported relaxation, pain and mood across small studies, and call for larger trials. That is a fair summary of the field: promising, repeatedly observed, not yet large.

Boyd-Brewer C, McCaffrey R. Vibroacoustic sound therapy improves pain management and more. Holistic Nursing Practice, 2004. Punkanen M, Ala-Ruona E. Contemporary vibroacoustic therapy. Music and Medicine, 2012. Bartel L, Mosabbir A. Possible mechanisms for the effects of sound vibration on human health. Healthcare, 2021.

40 Hz

Forty hertz sits at the heart of the AVA feet and root zones, and it is the most studied single frequency. In Toronto, Lee Bartel's group reported reduced pain and improved function in fibromyalgia after a course of 40 Hz sound stimulation (Naghdi et al. 2015), and improvements in cognition in people with Alzheimer's in small trials (Clements-Cortés et al. 2016). At MIT, Li-Huei Tsai's lab showed that 40 Hz light and sound stimulation drives gamma brain rhythms and reduces Alzheimer's pathology in mice (Iaccarino et al. 2016; Martorell et al. 2019), with early human trials under way. These are small human studies and animal work. They explain why the frequency matters. They do not make AVA a treatment.

Two more results matter for a bed rather than a headset. In a double-blind randomized trial, twelve weeks of 40 Hz vibration through a chair improved motor scores in Parkinson's (Mosabbir et al. 2020). And in 2023 the MIT group showed that whole-body 40 Hz vibration on its own, with no light, reduced markers of neurodegeneration in mice (Suk et al. 2023). Against that, a leading NYU lab could not reproduce the plaque effect with 40 Hz light in mice (Soula et al. 2023). The field is contested. That is why we study rather than promise.

Naghdi L et al. Pain Research and Management, 2015 (PMID 25545161). Clements-Cortés A et al. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 2016 (PMID 27031491). Mosabbir A et al. Healthcare, 2020 (PMID 32353963). Iaccarino HF et al. Nature, 2016 (PMID 27929004). Martorell AJ et al. Cell, 2019 (PMID 30879788). Suk HJ et al. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 2023 (PMID 37273653). Soula M et al. Nature Neuroscience, 2023 (PMID 36879142).

Music and the nervous system

Receptive music listening has the strongest evidence in this whole area. Meta-analyses find moderate reductions in state anxiety and stress (Bradt et al., Cochrane, 2013 on preoperative anxiety; de Witte et al. 2020 on stress). Slow, low-arousal music lowers heart rate and can raise heart rate variability, a marker of parasympathetic activity. Choir singers' heart rates synchronise to the phrase (Vickhoff et al. 2013), a reminder that shared sound entrains bodies together.

The closest thing to an AVA session in the literature is a group sound bath: sixty-two adults lying down for an hour of singing bowls reported large drops in tension, anxiety and fatigue afterwards, biggest in first-timers (Goldsby et al. 2017). No control group, so it is a starting point, not a proof.

Bradt J et al. Cochrane Database, 2013 (PMID 23740695). de Witte M et al. Health Psychology Review, 2020 (PMID 31167611). Vickhoff B et al. Frontiers in Psychology, 2013 (PMID 23847555). Goldsby TL et al. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2017 (PMID 27694559).

Feeling it together

Moving in time with other people raises pain thresholds and reported closeness (Tarr et al. 2015, 2016). Sitting around a fire changes conversation (Wiessner 2014). AVA is built on that older idea: the room holds eight because shared felt rhythm is where the social effects live.

Tarr B et al. Synchrony and exertion during dance independently raise pain threshold and encourage social bonding. Biology Letters, 2015. Wiessner PW. Embers of society: firelight talk among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen. PNAS, 2014.

AVA does not treat, cure or prevent any disease. It is not a medical device and has not been evaluated by the FDA. We do not say 432 Hz is healing, that 528 Hz repairs DNA, or that a frequency detoxes anything; those claims have no evidence and we will not use them. What we say: guests report deep relaxation and strong emotion, the research on felt low frequency sound and on music is promising and honestly cited above, and an hour in a dark room inside music you chose is a good thing to do with other people.

In regulatory terms, AVA is a general wellness product under the FDA's policy for low-risk devices (reissued January 2026): relaxation, stress management and sleep management are the uses we claim, and the only ones. We do not claim pain relief, circulation, or any condition, and we will not until a study we ran says so. AVA is a wellness experience, not a medical device or treatment. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

AVA is also a research instrument: eight instrumented places, a logged audio and vibration signal, an open API through AVA OS, and a steady flow of guests. We want to measure what people report. We are looking for an academic partner to run a pre and post study (heart rate variability, state anxiety, sleep) with an IRB, and for labs in music technology, haptics and music and health who want the bed as infrastructure. Write to team@avartifacts.com or see work with AVA.