Unlocking AI's Mental Health Potential: LUCID, Music, and the Mind
At the intersection of technology and music, LUCID is a Mila partner organization specializing in the use of AI and music to enhance mental health and well-being.
Background
Born out of a university thesis project and co-founded by CTO Aaron Labbé, LUCID seeks to understand the intricate relationship between music and the brain in order to create therapeutic, personalized music experiences as a non-invasive and effective alternative to traditional pharmacological treatments.
In 2022, LUCID partnered with Mila to better integrate machine learning into its brain activity analysis, leveraging AI's ability to process vast amounts of data in order to enhance the interaction between music and the human brain.
Diving Into Montreal’s AI Ecosystem
From the start, LUCID’s core mission was to improve mental health outcomes using music as a tool. Yet the human brain is infinitely complex, CTO Aaron Labbé explains, and the incredible amounts of data that emerged from their research quickly highlighted the need for super-powered tools. That’s where machine learning came in. By partnering with Mila, LUCID was able to invest in impact-driven applied research and development in AI. Through a first interactive visit, LUCID and Mila’s teams focused on understanding and mapping musical feature combinations and emotions. In their second and third projects, they revamped their music recommendation and curation systems. In addition to these tangible projects, Labbé and his colleagues have gotten deeply involved in Mila’s AI ecosystem, attending events and workshops, networking with other partners and startups, and establishing unique bonds with AI researchers and talent — Labbé even moved from Toronto to Montréal to immerse himself completely in the city’s blossoming AI ecosystem.
Labbé affirms that the partnership with Mila has been instrumental, enabling LUCID to rapidly integrate research findings into practical applications by continuously refining and improving their therapeutic tools. After all, Mila’s community is at the center of the AI action — and luckily so, since understanding the human brain and its relationship to music is an incredibly complex task. “It's temporal. It's preference-based. It's emotion-based. So we're always kind of running out of tools to use, and it’s a really challenging problem,” Labbé explains.
As new AI solutions come out, the earlier we hear about it, the better, and I think that's one of the aspects I value the most about the relationship with Mila.
Aaron Labbé, CTO and Co-founder, LUCID
A Partnership With Human-Centered Impact
Since partnering with Mila, LUCID’s technology has undergone multiple clinical trials, showing therapeutic results similar to pharmacological medication. Feedback from users, particularly those with dementia, has been overwhelmingly positive, and the impact is multipronged: patients can take less medication, the music therapy allows them to feel more like themselves, and their caregivers are less stressed taking care of their loved one.
“Since we serve folks who have dementia, the assumption was that they'd hate the AI — but they're actually a lot cooler than we are,” Labbé muses. “In our design research, we're learning a lot about the folks who are in elderly life. They're having a lot of fun, they're a lot more technically literate than people think, and they actually really like AI.”
Focused on creating a meaningful human impact, this collaboration has led to the development of cutting-edge music recommendation systems and the exploration of new applied machine learning methodologies, further advancing LUCID's progress in the mental health field. Looking ahead, Mila and LUCID are preparing for new, larger projects, including a full-scale applied research project to continue to amplify LUCID’s impact on mental health and well-being.