We present the experiences and lessons learned from two primate conservation projects in eastern and western Ecuador and analyze their contribution to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Both projects combine research, education, and capacity building to empower and engage local communities in initiatives to protect primate habitats. The projects’ outcomes contribute to SDGs 15 (Life on land), 4 , 2 (Zero hunger), 3 , 5 , 10 , 12 (Responsible consumption and production), and 13 (Climate actions). We highlight the importance of sharing information between projects with similar scopes and the need to develop local indicators for a more objective assessment of the contribution of small-scale conservation projects to the delivery of the SDGs.Ecuadorian primates are a diverse and ecologically important group that is facing severe conservation problems. We present the experiences and lessons learned from two primate conservation projects in eastern and western Ecuador to foster an in-depth reflection of what could be improved to enhance their contribution to the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By combining research, education, and capacity building, both projects aim to empower and engage local communities in initiatives to protect primate habitats. These efforts to enhance local environmental sustainability contribute to SDGs 15 (Life on land), 4 , 2 (Zero hunger), 3 , 5 , 10 , 12 (Responsible consumption and production), and 13 (Climate actions). One of our findings is that community involvement in conservation activities is not always directly related to an improvement of the conservation status of primate populations. Therefore, continuous monitoring of primate populations and of other relevant indicators is key to assessing the effectiveness of the interventions. We highlight the importance of sharing information between projects with similar scopes and the need to develop local indicators for a more objective assessment of the contribution of small-scale conservation projects to the delivery of the SDGs. The 22 primate species that inhabit tropical and subtropical forests in Ecuador are facing severe conservation problems . With anConsidering their potential as flagship species, efforts to conserve Ecuadorian primates and their forests could significantly contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular Goal 15—Life on land, which aims to “protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss” . For theIn this review, we present the experiences and lessons learned from two primate conservation projects in eastern and western Ecuador, the Bosques, Monos y Gente (BMG) project and the Tesoro Escondido Reserve (TER) project, led by us, to foster an in-depth reflection of what could be improved to enhance their contribution to the delivery of the SDGs. By combining research, education, and capacity building, both projects aim to empower local communities and engage them as the primary actors of conservation initiatives, reducing deforestation and other anthropogenic threats to biodiversity to eventually improve the conservation status of primate populations.In this section, we present a brief description of the projects, an overview of the methodological approach we used to achieve our goals, and the methods to assess the projects’ outcomes.The BMG project began in 2003, with the support of Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Fundación VIHOMA. The project team is led by S.d.l.T. and includes students and researchers from USFQ and other institutions. Although this project began before the SDGs were adopted in 2015 , it is aCebuella pygmaea and C. niveiventris, in Ecuadorian Amazonia, our project team began an environmental education program for children of indigenous communities, based on didactic games about the ecology, behavior, and conservation of primates and their habitats [In 2003, while studying the behavior and ecology of pygmy marmosets, habitats . In lateTo assess the impact of our environmental education program, at the beginning of each education journey we asked the children to answer a quiz (5 to 8 questions) about primate ecology, behavior, and conservation (details on the questions can be made available under reasonable request). During the education journey, we did not directly answer the questions of the quiz but included the answers in the information we gave to the children in the activities we carried out with them. Once we finished the journey, we asked the children to answer a second quiz with similar questions. We compared the number of correct and incorrect answers in the pre- and post-journey quizzes with chi-squared tests. Additionally, we qualitatively assessed the games and other didactic materials, based on the interest the children showed in using each of them.In 2005, we decided to concentrate our conservation work in a smaller area. We began a close collaboration with the Secoya nationality, an ethnic minority of about 600 people living in northeastern Ecuador ,9, to deCebuella pygmaea. From June through August each year, from 2005 through 2016, we carried out surveys along 3 km transects of gallery forests in three sites of the Secoya territory, to record the number and size of the groups of this primate species. We used Western pygmy marmoset as indicator of the conservation status of the primate community, because we had studied this species in that area since 2001 and also because the low number of recordings of the other eight primate species in the surveys we carried out [To estimate the impact of our project on the population density of primate species, we focused on the Western pygmy marmoset ried out  did not mestizo (settlers) farmers. In each selected area, we placed a 500 × 500 m grid on land-cover maps from 2005 (when we began our project), 2011 (when we were carrying out the project), and 2020 (after the project). We recorded the number of quadrats with at least one pixel of forest lost (identified by a specific color in the maps) and calculated the percentage of quadrats with forest lost  from the total number of quadrats of each selected area in each of the three years.To estimate the influence of the project on deforestation trends in the Secoya territory, we used land cover maps of the Global Forest Watch platform . We selected two areas of 3 × 3 km in each of the two Secoya settlements; we also selected a 3 × 3 km “control” site in a neighboring area of Alouatta palliata aequatorialis and the Ecuadorian capuchin Cebus aequatorialis [In 2016, we began this conservation initiative in La Libertad parish, in southwestern Ecuador, a highly disturbed area with few small remnants of Tumbesian dry forest. These forest remnants still host populations of two critically endangered primates, the Mantled howler torialis . We combTo assess the impact of our project on primate populations, we carried out surveys in forest remnants, recording the number of groups and group sizes of the Mantled howler in 2016–17 and 2020–21.Ateles fusciceps fusciceps, one of the 25 most endangered primates in the world [A. palliata and Cebus capucinus, both listed as Critically Endangered by the Ecuadorian Red List of Mammals 2021 [The TER Project is carried out in the lowland Ecuadorian Chocó, within the global biodiversity hotspot Tumbes–Chocó–Magdalena . The prohe world . It is aals 2021 . The Tesals 2021 . The worThe first stage of our permanent environmental education program (2016–2019) focused, on a weekly basis, on 11 local schools in 10 local communities around the Tesoro Escondido Reserve. Eight of these schools were multi-level (6–12 years old), with one teacher in one classroom, and three were federal schools, with 8th, 9th, and 10th grades participating in our activities. Occasional workshops were also delivered to a high school. The ethnicity in all schools was mixed, or settlers, as they are called in Ecuador. Settlers arrived from other provinces to the province Esmeraldas around 40 years ago, looking for better lands to farm. Their view of the forest was (and in many cases still is) a source of wood to sell and an area to be transformed into cropland. Moreover, the area has been dominated by industrial timber companies for over half a century. They provide most jobs and many basic services in the local communities. At the beginning of our workshops, we carried out a short survey to assess children’s knowledge on local biodiversity, with emphasis on primates. By the end of 2019, we asked children about the same topics. For some topics, such as illegally keeping wild animals as pets, we included teachers and parents in the workshops.Our environmental education program stopped during the pandemic, from early 2019 until mid-2021, when we started the second stage of the program in a new format, called Environmental Clubs, which are carried out on a weekly basis outside the school hours in a communal space designated by the community. We also focus on the forest school methodology, taking the children to the reserve for two nights every three months. Each trip has a learning objective , looking to awaken the children’s interest in and concern for the specific topic. We involve them in the scientific research we carry out there: they get to see how camera traps work, and they do primate monitoring, bird watching, and amphibian surveys. They are also involved in agroecology projects in their own communities and work every week with our environmental educators on different topics relevant to conservation and sustainability. Art in its different versions, particularly photography, is a regular tool that we use for students to express their concerns, their views, and their proposals for the communities and environment they want in their lives.An oral evaluation was carried out before the start of Environmental Clubs in 2021, focused on what children did know of the area they live in and its species and their needs and wishes for activities in the club. This evaluation also helped us to assess our work before the pandemic and understand how knowledge has been internalized by children over the years. We evaluated the children again in February 2022.In 2021, our environmental education program was part of a research project called “Hope in the Present”, by the University of Sussex, exploring the role of uncertain pedagogies such as photography and plasticine models as transformative tools in engaging children with environmental sustainability , which aIn 2013, inspired by previous experiences from other research groups in Papua New Guinea , Bolivia2 was designed in a communal space and is maintained by members of the local community.In 2018, an agroecology project was established with the objectives of improving food sovereignty and security, particularly for women. We started in the Cristobal Colon community with a one-year intense workshop (once every two weeks) aimed at women. An agroecology garden of 500 mmestizo communities, both in rural and urban areas, reaching, by 2006, a total of 605 children. When comparing the answers of the children in the quizzes before and after an education journey, we found that the number of incorrect answers was significantly lower in the post-journey quizzes than in the pre-journey quizzes , pointing to a positive effect of our intervention, both in terms of the new knowledge that children gained about primate ecology and of their interest in conservation. Overall, carrying out these environmental education journeys for children has been so motivating and enriching that we always look forward to organizing these journeys whenever we have the chance. By 2020, when the pandemic started, we had reached about 1700 children in 16 locations in the coast, Andes, and Amazon, ranging from large cities such as Quito and Guayaquil to small rural settlements , ages 17 through 72, actively involved in research from 2006 through 2013.The results of the participatory research projects were published in three books distributed to all the Secoya people ,16,17 anTo define the sustainable productive activities that were to be implemented, we carried out workshops with all the community. Based on previous experiences that several Secoya had on tourism, the first activity they proposed was, indeed, communitarian tourism.In 2008, we initiated a collaborative network with several public and private organizations to develop a business plan, carry out training courses to improve the Secoya’s skills in all the components of the tourism program and build touristic infrastructure . In 2010, the program of communitarian tourism was set and ready to begin. An internationally well-known tourist operator signed a collaborative agreement with the Secoya to help them with the program implementation. About two years later, however, the community decided to end this collaboration and tried other management strategies that were unsuccessful, so the tourism program came to an end.Although the Secoya viewed communitarian tourism as the best strategy to diversify and improve their economy and to reinforce their culture, it was not their only strategy. While the communitarian tourism program was implemented, we were exploring the feasibility of the sustainable production of native fish and poultry, which could contribute to food security for the community and, eventually, be sold to external markets as elaborated products of the Secoya traditional gastronomy.By 2010, small-scale poultry farming was carried out by eight Secoya families, following a protocol to reduce the potential conflict with native predators  and to make the activity as sustainable as possible. Chickens were raised in enclosures appropriate to ensure their health and well-being. The families began to cultivate some fast-growing plants species  to produce high quality local food for the chickens. This activity, however, ended soon because the productivity of the plants was low and required more time than the families were able to dedicate, so they decided to buy the food in the city markets. The poultry production was mainly used by the families, but some animals were cooked using a traditional Secoya recipe and sold in organic markets in Quito with other products of the Secoya cuisine. Although these food products were appreciated by consumers, the preparation process was complex and eventually the families stopped working on the initiative. The fish farming initiative was also stopped, mainly because of the difficulties in obtaining reproductive individuals from the wild stock of native fish species. Despite the failure of these two initiatives at that time, a positive outcome was that several Secoya of both sexes were trained in the basics of sustainable fish and poultry farming.In the final assessment we carried out, when our direct involvement in this conservation project ended, we analyzed the changes in the number of groups and the group size of the pygmy marmoset in three areas of the Secoya territory and compared the extent of the deforested areas in the Secoya territory and in neighboring areas.In the three Secoya sites, where we monitored pygmy marmoset groups from 2005 through 2016, the number of groups declined over time . In two mestizo farms. The increase in deforested areas over the years was also lower in the Secoya territory .In the last six years, we have tried to apply what we learned from the Secoya experience to a new conservation initiative in La Libertad parish, in southwestern Ecuador. Here, the challenge is perhaps more complex, because the community needs to restore forests and create corridors to connect isolated patches, and there are fewer funding sources to support conservation initiatives of For the education component, we implemented the “teaching teachers” program with the approval of the regional office of the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education. In 2018, we carried out trimestral workshops over two years, providing teachers didactic materials and developing a course plan for environmental education with them. One tangible result of our effort was the celebration of the “La Libertad International Monkey Day”, as part of the program of the official festivities of the parish. In this celebration, attended by most community members in 2018 and 2019, students and teachers of the four schools of the area participated in didactic and recreational activities promoting primate conservation. Since 2020, we have not been able to celebrate Monkey Day with the community because of the pandemic, but we are looking forward to resuming it soon.Implementing the parabiologist program for the adults of the community took us more time, and we reached fewer participants (eight), partly because of funding limitations and also because the time budget of the farmers in La Libertad did not allow them to regularly attend workshops. The performance of the parabiologists during the pandemic was, however, outstanding and included primate monitoring and the reforestation of small corridors with native plants. We are now searching for new funds to support them in continuing this research.When we began our collaboration with the local government, our mutual goal was to develop a sustainable tourism program, with primates as one of the main attractions. In 2019, with the collaboration of the Association of Tour Operators of El Oro Province, the regional government, and a local university , we developed a business plan and best practice guidelines for primate tourism, but because of the pandemic we had to put this initiative on hold.Not all the effects of the pandemic, though, were negative. When comparing the number of groups and the average group size of Mantled howlers in 2016–17, when we began the project, and in 2020–21, during the pandemic lockdown, we found an increase in the number of groups (from 11 to 21) and in the average group size . The reduction in human activities due to the lockdown, combined with an increase in environmental awareness, hopefully boosted by our project, may partly explain the positive results [In the first phase of our program, we reached around 800 students, ages 6–18. We started the workshops by situating children in the Ecuadorian Chocó, which sadly is not common knowledge in the schools. Then, we moved forward to the biodiversity that exists in the area, focusing on primates, particularly the brown-headed spider monkey and its identification, ecology, and conservation.In the short survey we carried out at the beginning of our workshops, only 12% of all children, mainly the ones who lived very close to the forest or had forest on their farms, could correctly identify the three species of primates. Most of them confused howler monkeys and spider monkeys due to their similar color. Capuchins were identified easier. Kinkajous were also thought to be primates. About 85% of the children considered having a pet monkey as desirable.A written evaluation at the end of 2019 showed that over 95% of the children involved in our workshops were able to identify the three species of primates living in the region, as well as other emblematic species such as jaguars, pumas, and macaws and small mammals like ocelots, tayras, and kinkajous. About 75% of students were informed about primate diets and habitat preferences. The campaign against keeping wild animals as pets resulted in children handing in two kinkajous, a white-collared peccary, and a baby brown-headed spider monkey, which were all taken to rescue centers.Our environmental education program stopped during the pandemic, from early 2019 until mid-2021, when we started the second stage of the program, the Environmental Clubs. We currently work in three communities, thus far reaching around 120 children, ages 4–16. After six months with the Environmental Clubs, an evaluation was carried out in the clubs of the three communities in 2022. These children had spent time in the reserve and had discussions on more complex topics such as sustainability in their lives and wild animals as pets. They had also assisted with talks given by parabiologists in the reserve and participated in projects in the field, such as primate monitoring, seed identification, camera traps, and mist netting. The children had even discussed more complex ecology topics such as animal–plant interactions, jaguar-coexistence solutions, etc. Almost all the children who had visited the reserve (98%) correctly answered questions about the Chocó, primate species, emblematic flora and fauna, diet, and habitat requirements, as well as about sustainability and agroecology. We evaluated the change in perceptions and attitudes that the children we worked with had toward different subjects. While this is an ongoing process, being part of the Environmental Clubs as a regular weekly activity and, especially, going out into the forest and being part of participative research has changed how they see the forest and its inhabitants. For example, in terms of keeping wild animals as pets, since we started our environmental education program, the number of animals rescued from these communities has drastically diminished. We have not found any primates or kinkajous kept as pets in the last four years; in fact, children involved in the Environmental Clubs have called us and helped with the rescue of two sloths kept in a house in another town.The Hope in the Present project by Sussex University served as an evaluation of how the activities at the Environmental Clubs have been internalized in the children’s lives and how, in towns where “modern development” is a priority, children have made the forest, its species (amongst them primates), rivers and organic gardens priorities for their future life and elements they want to conserve for their future. During this program we have worked on SDG 5 , as we involve girls in all activities, focusing on the message that boys and girls are equal. This is particularly important in rural Ecuador, where there is marked inequality between men and women regarding poverty, employment and education . Our teaWhen we started our primate monitoring at the Tesoro Escondido Reserve, we trained five local people in the methodology and hired three of them for a year to carry out primate surveys. In 2016, as the TER was established, we trained another five people, not only in primate surveys but also in camera traps and amphibian, reptile, bat, and bird, survey methodologies. The parabiologist program at the TER has trained over 30 people, permanently hiring 8 of them to carry out research in the reserve and assist students and researchers, as well as deliver environmental education workshops in the local communities to children (permanently) and adults .The agroecology garden, “Huerta Viva la Cristobal”, is maintained by members of the local community, applying different methodologies of agroecology and permaculture. It has become a model on organic agriculture, which had more impact during the pandemic when obtaining food from “outside” was difficult. Women retook having a garden in their own houses and learning the processes of planting and taking care of plants. Over 40 out of around 300 women are involved in agroecology in the town. Some of them make a living from their gardens and continue to teach other women in nearby towns. This project was also applied at schools before the pandemic, encouraging and supporting teachers to comply with the national TINI project by the Environmental Education Ministry (Land for Children and Young), with the aim to reconnect young people with nature by giving them a small garden plot to plant what they wanted. We trained teachers in agroecology and provided material and expertise in building a miniature agroecology space in each school. Many gardens turned afterwards into community gardens, showing the interest and compromise of the whole community regarding this project.Despite differences in methods and outcomes, our conservation projects share a common goal: to empower local communities as primary actors of conservation initiatives. They are also similar in the approach used to achieve this goal, by combining research, education, capacity building, and the development of sustainable productive activities in local communities. Independently, each project team decided to use this approach, developing convergent strategies and activities. Overall, we believe that our approach is effective, but we acknowledge that we would have benefited from sharing our experiences earlier. Therefore, in this review, we want to share these experiences and lessons learned with more people who are interested in carrying out conservation projects, to foster an in-depth reflection of what could be improved, to enhance their contribution to the delivery of the SDGs at the local and national levels.The active involvement of local communities is key in our conservation initiatives, although the outcomes of the efforts for empowering local people may not always be what we initially expected and may also take more time than expected. Communities differ in their short- and long-term responses to projects’ interventions, depending on their socio-environmental characteristics. Constant evaluation, adaptability, and patience are needed to maintain the positive impacts of the education and capacity-building initiatives.actions they take every day toward conserving this environment in their lives. This change in attitudes is the best indicator of the success of an environmental education program.In our projects, education initiatives have always been science-based and have contributed to SDG 4′s  targets by providing relevant learning opportunities for children and adults of both sexes in local communities. Our environmental education programs for children have been very well-received and have had positive results. Taking children to the forest in a planned and regular way, with activities that bring them closer to this environment, has an enormous impact on the children’s lives and on the The “teaching teachers” initiative to develop environmental education course plans for the local schools is a useful strategy to assure the continuity of the programs in the long term. In the two communities where we implemented this initiative, teachers were motivated to learn new didactic tools and used the course plans as the baseline for the new official plans requested by the Ministry of Education.One of the lessons we learned is that to ensure that the positive effects of the education initiatives are long-lasting, it is better to concentrate the conservation efforts in few local communities, with whom we could closely interact in the long term. We hope, though, that we can also eventually collaborate, based on our experiences, in a nation-wide program of environmental education led by public institutions, such as the Ecuadorian Ministries of Environment and Education.The combination of participatory research and education of the parabiologist programs offered the participants a different perspective, to understand and value their cultural and natural heritage. Furthermore, their interest in pursuing a university degree increased. In the BMG project, we obtained funding to support the B.S. careers, in Sustainable Development, of three young Secoya, who are currently leading the Secoya organization, an international NGO supporting Amazonian nationalities, and a regional public program for the development of local communities, respectively. Following their example, other young Secoya of both sexes are now studying undergraduate and graduate careers in a variety of areas.Parabiologists trained at the TER have effectively become ambassadors of conservation in their own families and communities, transmitting knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes. Even parabiologists who have left for various reasons have changed their view toward the forest, nature, and the importance of conservation, applying this in their lives. Actively involving local people in research and valuing local knowledge and skills is a vital step for the conservation of primates and natural areas. This is particularly true for women, who locally have very few sources of personal and professional growth. Women who have participated in our parabiologist program have become more independent, empowered, and strong advocates of conservation, transmitting this to their children in a more active way than men. They have also become important role models for younger women, opening a path for the new generation in the area.mestizo farms. We acknowledge, though, that there are other factors not related to our project that should be considered to explain this difference in deforestation trends [Our projects have contributed to the protection and local management of native forests that are among SDG 15′s targets . Particin trends .Another important lesson we learned is that protecting primate habitats by empowering local communities does not necessarily improve the conservation status of primate populations. The threats primates face are complex and may not always be mitigated by conservation projects. Systematic monitoring of primate populations and of other relevant indicators is important to assess the effectiveness of conservation interventions and the need for implementing new strategies . In thisThe synergy between our contributions to SDGs 4 and 15 has allowed us to also contribute to other SDGs, including SDG 2 (Zero hunger), 2 , 5 , 10 , 12 (Responsible consumption and production), and 13 (Climate actions). However, the fact that the SDGs’ indicators evaluate progress at the national or regional levels makes it difficult to objectively assess the contributions of small, local conservation projects such as ours. Developing a new set of indicators to assess local projects is a necessary step to improve the measurement and monitoring of their progress toward the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.Sharing the experiences and results of conservation projects is important to guide and improve similar conservation pathways. Finding opportunities and spaces for information sharing should be a priority for project managers.Ecuadorian primates are flagship species; to improve their conservation status, we need to conserve and restore the native ecosystems where they occur, directly contributing to SDG 15 (Life on land). For these efforts to be effective, it is critical to engage local communities in all the stages of conservation projects.The combination of research, education, and capacity building is an effective strategy to empower and engage local communities in conservation initiatives. Efforts to enhance local environmental sustainability and conservation not only contribute to SDG 4  and SDG 15 but also to SDGs 2 (Zero hunger), 3 , 5 , 10 , 12 (Responsible consumption and production), and 13 (Climate actions).Protecting forests by empowering local communities is not always directly related to an improvement of the conservation status of primate populations, given the complexity of the threats. Continuous monitoring of primate populations and of other relevant indicators is important to assess the effectiveness of interventions.


This paper focuses on the characteristics of immersive media technology and the advantages, problems and solutions in applying this technology to improve the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. Firstly, it introduces the current development and characteristics of immersive media technology. Secondly, it analyzed the outstanding advantages of immersive media technology in teaching from the following perspectives: virtual reality and augmented reality; sensory stimulation and emotional experience; and human-computer interaction and self-harmony. Thirdly, it puts forward the ways to improve the teaching effectiveness based on immersive media technology from the aspects of theoretical study, history study, and practical study of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. Finally, it discusses the problems in applying immersive media technology to teaching the above courses and puts forward some solutions. The concept of immersion originates from the immersion theory put forward by American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. According to this theory, immersion refers to the pleasure people may experience when they complete devotion to and concentration on ongoing activities and situations . When peUniversal Principles of Design, the word “immersion” is interpreted as a kind of extreme concentration, an utter forgetfulness of the natural world around  technology and VR  technology are developed to provide a deep immersion experience. The emergence of AR and VR has enabled people to find ways to use technology to describe the world in immersive media better. Relying on the industrialization process of computer 3D modeling, near-eye display, surround sound, force feedback vibration, micro-sensors and other technologies, immersive media will achieve the vividness of vision, hearing, touch, and smell and smoothness of interaction in the real world. Under such conditions, the users will enter a mode of shared experience in which their consciousness is concentrated in a small range, other irrelevant perceptions and thoughts being filtered, and only specific goals and explicit feedback being responded to. This produces a sense of control and affirmation of their own ability. The application of the above-mentioned technologies and devices to media effects immersive media technology.Immersive media, as a brand-new media that combines psychology, acoustics, optics, and computer virtual technology, has been applied in various fields at present. The most typical one is the cultural tourism industry. Using immersive media technology and AR, VR and somatosensory interactive devices, a virtual environment is created according to historical facts, ideas or plots, so that participants can immerse themselves in the virtual environment to see, feel and interact, and their experience is significantly improved. Another broader stage for immersive media technology to exert its application value is the field of education. When the application of immersive media technology can be consistent with the teaching theory, the correct design and appropriate arrangement will provide strong support for the expansion and deepening of the course contents and the improvement and optimization of learning effectiveness. This is almost beyond traditional teaching methods.The wave of educational informatization has unprecedentedly highlighted the power of education. By integrating educational informatization, innovating teaching modes, enriching teaching means and improving teaching effectiveness, immersive media technology is currently one of the most popular innovative means in the field of education reform in the world. Whether it is in the case of school education or social education, the contribution of immersive media technology is prominent. At present, quite a few universities in China have introduced immersive media technology to classroom teaching to improve the teaching effectiveness of some courses previously taught poorly in the traditional teaching model. In particular, the application of immersive media technology will effectively diversify and reify the teaching of ideological and political theory courses, which are the essential courses to implement the fundamental task of building up moral integrity and cultivating talents of virtues in the whole process of higher education. It can effectively help students to reduce cognitive load, stay motivated, improve practical ability, and cultivate positive emotions, thus achieving the desired teaching effectiveness.Chinese President Xi Jinping once emphasized that “we should use new media and new technologies to conduct our work vigorously, promote the high integration of traditional advantages of ideological and political education with information technology, and enhance the sense of the times and attraction” . In ordeImmersive media has outstanding advantages in solving the problems of monotony and abstraction in the traditional teaching of ideological and political theory courses, helping students to reduce cognitive load, stay focused and motivated, and enhancing practical ability and team spirit. The tapping advantages of immersive media technology will make teaching ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities yield twice the result with half the effort.In order to verify and evaluate the advantages of immersive media in improving the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities, experiments have been carried out among undergraduates in Liaoning University. Subjects participated in the experiment through voluntary registration. After excluding those who already knew about the experiment content, 60 undergraduates from Liaoning University were recruited as subjects. During the experiment, 240 valid questionnaires were collected. See Outline of Modern Chinese History, a textbook for university ideological and political courses, and the documentary Long March filmed by China Central Television. Immersive teaching media included the immersive virtual simulation course system “Stay Confident on the Long March in the New Era—Decoding the Long March Spirit” produced by Liaoning University, which could give subjects an overview of the Long March through time and space in the virtual Long March Memorial Hall. In addition, there was the VR interactive simulation experience system “Crossing Jinsha River” developed by Peijing Technology. The experiencer would become a boatman and help the Red Army main force to cross the torrential Jinsha River through human-computer interaction.The materials used in the experiment included traditional teaching media and immersion teaching media. Traditional teaching media included PPT slides (including text and static pictures) based on Section 2 of Chapter 5 in Outline of Modern Chinese History by teachers in the conference room in one class, and in the other class, they watched the teaching video Long March (excerpt) and then filled out the questionnaire. The 30 students in Group 2 listened to the teachers in the conference room together with Group 1 in the first class. Then, in the second class, they went to the multi-functional classroom where they were subdivided into three groups of 10 students and continued to study using immersive teaching media. They watched videos, wore VR equipment, and filled out relevant questionnaires. After data collection, we used EXCEL for data statistics and analysis.The 7-day experiment was conducted in the conference room and the multi-functional classroom of Marxism College of Liaoning University. The conference room had a big screen for PPT and video. The multi-functional classroom was equipped with 10 computers for VR equipment experience. During the experiment, 60 students were evenly divided into Group 1 and Group 2. Group 1 only used traditional teaching media to study, while Group 2 adopted immersion teaching media. The 30 students in Group 1 were taught the content of the Long March in the second section of Chapter 5 of The application of immersive media in promoting education and teaching practice is mainly based on VR, AR, and other technical equipment. VR technology is a comprehensive technology integrating computer technology, sensor technology, psychology, and physiology. The main simulation objects include environment, skills, and perceptions. It aims to simulate the external environment through the simulation software and hardware systems such as computers, audio-visual terminals, and tactile terminals and provide users with highly restorable, informative, and interactive virtual physiological and psychological experiences. AR technology is a combination of the virtual and the real. It simulates through computers and terminals such information as vision, sound, taste, and touch that are difficult to experience in a certain time and space. It then superimposes the information on the real world for human senses to recognize to achieve cognitive experience beyond reality.Attention is the concentration and focus of people’s mental efforts—selective, transferable and distractible. Attention restoration is the process in which attention is distracted, briefly shifted and focused again . The attIdeological and political theory courses in colleges and universities, such as Basic Principles of Marxism, emphasize theoretical study. The teaching contents of these courses are often abstract, monotonous and theoretically challenging. Naturally, students may often find them too boring and difficult and burdensome since these courses usually require students to be good at abstract reasoning. So, the confusion, repetition and the complex learning content make it all the more difficult for students to restore attention. VR and AR technology is applied to teaching ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities to solve this problem. This technology can improve the attraction of teaching contents, help to hold students’ attention, and promptly restore attention if diverted. The cutting-edge MR technology can combine the advantages of both VR and AR, help students to visualize what they study, and reduce their cognitive burden. In the VR and AR learning environment under the framework of immersive media technology, teachers will show the course contents to students through mental and perceptual simulation, create a virtual space conducive to students’ understanding and learning, or present the virtual contents in the real situation, to engage students in teaching through real-time interaction. When the learning situation ultimately attracts students’ senses, their consciousness will narrowly focus on learning activities. At the same time, the differences between themselves and the environment, between stimuli and reactions, between the past, present and the future will almost disappear. They will only respond to clear goals and specific feedback, and irrelevant perceptions and ideas will be filtered out. Another important factor that affects students’ attention restoration is the freedom learners enjoy thanks to the application of immersive technology. The greater the freedom is the easier it is for the students to ignore irrelevant information and focus on what they should learn.In the questionnaire, the students of Group 1, who only learned through watching the video, were compared with the subjects who learned through VR teaching media made with immersive media technology. Whenever a major battle named after a river appears in the course for the first time , the subject needs to raise his hand within 3 s. A correct move scores one point; a wrong or failed one scores none. The number of students in the second group with a score of 6-5 is significantly higher than that in the first group. It can be seen that the use of immersive media technology in ideological and political theory teaching can effectively improve students’ attention restoration ability .A learner’s learning experience mainly consists of cognitive experience and emotional experience. The change of cognitive experience causes emotional response, so the promotion of emotional experience is based on the promotion of cognitive experience . CognitiOne of the biggest limitations of traditional classroom teaching methods lies in the limitations of time and space on teaching situations. It is not easy to simulate and reproduce some specific historical scenes in an all-around way to teach ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities in a traditional way. Due to various objective factors, some historical scenes and historical figures are displayed only by one-dimensional text descriptions or two-dimensional photos and videos in the teaching process, which are usually not easily understood and accepted by students . With thThe questionnaire had a task: match the following statements with the battles they describe—Crossing Dadu River/Crossing Xiangjiang River/Crossing Jinsha River. Statement A was “This is the most tragic and fierce war on Red Army’s Long March. The river is dyed red with blood.” Statement B was “For 7 days and nights, the main force of the Red Army only relied on seven boats to cross the river.” Statement C was “The Red Army soldiers carried muskets and few grenades, holding on to the rickety iron rope and braving the fierce fire on the other side.” Students would score 2 points if they gave all correct answers, 1 point for some correct answers and 0 point for all wrong answers. The second group using immersion media had obvious cognitive accuracy advantages compared to the first group using only text materials and static PPT slides. It can be seen that the use of immersive media in teaching can effectively improve the accuracy of understanding and enhance the level of cognitive experience.Fostering patriotism and cultivating national confidence is one of the important teaching tasks of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. Immersive media technology plays a positive role in creating emotional experiences and arousing emotional resonance. The most significant advantage of immersive media is to render the audience immersed. Real pictures, sounds, colors, shapes, etc., make the audience completely immersed in the “real world” of the virtual world and impact the emotional experience of the audience. Wise use of immersive media technology can enhance students’ emotional experience and effectively improve the teaching effect . One of The positive and negative affect scale (PA-NAS) compiled by Watson and others was used to test the degree of participation in the emotional experience of the two groups. In the questionnaire .The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.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.


Malaria infection during pregnancy (MIP) is not only deleterious to the woman, but it also puts her fetus at increased risk of adverse outcomes, such as preterm delivery, low birth weight, and intrauterine growth retardation. Additionally, all-cause mortality during the first year of life in babies born to women with malaria during pregnancy is also increased. Many interventions such as IPTp-SP and long-lasting insecticidal nets have proven to be efficient at reducing malaria in pregnancy burden but adherence to recommended policies remains poor. In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria in pregnancy is often asymptomatic and many malaria infections may be missed due to the inadequate performance of the current rapid diagnostic test to detect low-level parasitemias. Therefore, additional strategies such as intermittent screening with ultrasensitive rapid diagnostic tests and treatment with an effective artemisinin-based combination therapy in addition to IPTp-SP could reduce placental malaria, peripheral malaria infection at delivery, and low birth weight.This pilot 2-group randomized open trial with a nested qualitative social behavioral will be carried out in Nanoro district in which 340 pregnant women will be recruited. Pregnant women will be randomized into two groups and followed on a monthly basis until delivery. In the intervention group, monthly screening using ultrasensitive rapid diagnostic tests and treatment of those found to be infected with dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine will be performed. In addition, a reminder will be sent to increase the uptake of IPTp-SP doses per woman. During scheduled and unscheduled visits, malaria infection, hemoglobin level, and other clinical outcomes will be assessed and compared by the group. The primary feasibility outcome will evaluate the study site's capacity to enroll participants and the women’s perception and acceptability of the intervention. The primary clinical outcome will be the prevalence of placental malaria at delivery.The present protocol aims to evaluate the feasibility on a large-scale and also to demonstrate the impact and the operational feasibility of additional screening with ultrasensitive rapid diagnostic tests and treatment with DHA-PQ on placental malaria, low birth weight, and peripheral malaria infection at delivery in a high-burden setting in Burkina Faso.ClinicalTrials.gov, ID: NCT04147546 (14 October 2019). Plasmodium falciparum infection increases when women get pregnant, with potential adverse consequences for mothers and their offsprings. Placental sequestration is more common in P. falciparum infections [Malaria remains a major preventable cause of morbidity, mortality, and adverse birth outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa (sSA). By using a model, Walker and colleagues estimated that without pregnancy-specific interventions in sub-Saharan Africa, 9.5 million pregnant women would have been exposed to infection, leading to 750,000 low birth weight (LBW) deliveries . In areafections , 4. Primfections , and malfections . Malariafections . To prevfections . The latfections , 15 durifections , 17. Strfections  recommenfections , 20. Morfections . These sfections –25. Idenfections –29. TherThis is a pilot individual randomized control trial in which all pregnant women attending the ANC will be invited to participate. They will be randomized into one of the intervention groups or the control group which is the standard of care. This feasibility study design will analyze the acceptability of the intervention through the dimension of the burden, ethical consequences, experience, opportunity cost, intention, and affective attitude and assess the impact and operational feasibility of adding malaria infection screening using an ultrasensitive RDT for placental and fetal outcomes. The analysis will focus on the factors limiting adherence to IPTp-SP uptake in the health district of Nanoro. We hypothesize that the intervention will improve pregnancy outcomes both in mothers and their offsprings by improving diagnosis, case management, and prevention of malaria in pregnancy.The study will be carried out in the Nanoro health district, a rural area located in the center of Burkina Faso, at 85Km from Ouagadougou, the capital city. The health district of Nanoro covers an area of 150,000 inhabitants and comprises 18 dispensaries, all with maternity, general clinic, and immunization programs (EPI) . The maiPrior to enrolment, community engagement activities will be implemented according to the CRUN procedures. Information provided will consist of a step-by-step approach, starting with the administrative leaders followed by the traditional chiefs and the community leaders and ending with the population in the study area. Community meetings and focus group discussions coordinated by the qualified research team member will be conducted in the villages of Soaw and Pella departments. The sessions will focus on the problem of malaria in pregnancy, the current strategies as well as their limitations. The need and the difficulties of improving the case detection will be discussed, as well as an outline of the proposed study, including the rationale, the background data available, and the study objectives. Finally, all pregnant women attending antennal care will be invited to participate in the present study.All pregnant women attending the ANC will be asked to participate. The inclusion/exclusion criteria are as follows:The main trial will include participants meeting the following eligibility criteria:Gestational age of 16 to 24 weeks at their first bookingAt least (≥) 16 years old Ability to provide written informed consentA history of sensitivity to sulphonamides or to any of the study drugsHistory of known pregnancy complications or bad obstetric histories such as repeated stillbirths or eclampsiaHistory or presence of major illnesses likely to influence pregnancy outcome, including diabetes mellitus, severe renal or heart disease, or active tuberculosisAny significant illness at the time of screening that requires hospitalization, including severe malaria; Intent to move out of the study catchment area before delivery or deliver at relative’s home out of the catchment areaPrior enrolment in the study or concurrent enrolment in another studyEligible pregnant women will be randomly assigned (1:1) to either an intervention or control group computer-generated randomization schedule. Allocation concealment will be achieved by the use of sealed, opaque, and sequentially numbered envelopes each containing the study number and assignment of the participant to the study group. These envelopes will be prepared by an independent pharmacist based on the block randomization list generated by the study statistician. Once the participant has met all the eligibility criteria, the study clinician/nurse will open the envelopes to determine the group assignment and the study number of the participant. Recruitment will be “competitive” between the sites in the trial. Participants will be recruited over a 12-month period and followed for 6 months until delivery. To minimize cross-contamination, study subjects will be encouraged to attend the health facility within their catchment and not seek ANC or delivery elsewhere. It will not be possible to blind this intervention as pregnant women will quickly identify into which group they have been randomized into. Observer bias will be reduced where feasible. Blood films and placenta biopsies will be read by microscopists blinded to the identity and intervention status of the subjects.In this study, 2 packages will be used as comparators: the standard of care package versus the new intervention package.The current standard of care strategy for pregnant women attending ANC during the second and third trimester of pregnancy is based on three components .The new intervention package will include three components . Each of these three components has been shown to individually improve pregnancy outcomes. We hypothesize that a synergistic action of the three components will result in a higher impact on the outcomes of interest  as compared to the current standard of care.Comparisons will not be done between the individual components of each intervention package, but rather their combined effects between study groups: the intervention group  and the control group .Study participants enrolment capacity: The study coordinator will monitor weekly enrollment capacity of each of the study sites using the screening and recruitment log. The average number of participants recruited weekly in the respective study sites will be used to evaluate the minimum required time to reach the sample size. The feasibility of the recruitment in a period of 12 months will be considered in order to capture seasonality.Number of refusals: The number of study participants who refuse to participate in the present pilot will be recorded as well as their reasons using the screening and recruitment log. The sample size was calculated including 10% of non-response. In case of a high rate of refusals (>10%), reasons for refusal will be examined in order to improve the recruitment rate in the trial.Perceptions and acceptability: Semi-structured discussion and interview guides will be piloted prior to the start of the study. All revisions made will be noted and incorporated in the final guide. This will allow easy understanding and the percentage of focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted with the minimum required number of participants will be monitored. All FGDs will be conducted with the objective of 100% of completeness.Study visits completion: The percentage of study participants having completed the study follow-up will be calculated. This will be very helpful for the implementation of the trial. A loss to follow-up < 10% will be considered acceptable.Data quality checks: Missing data will be monitored and quantified in this pilot trial. The objective will be to have less than 1% of missing values.Sample size assumptions: Some variables such as the number of doses of IPTp-SP doses taken during pregnancy, normal birth weight (2500g), peripheral malaria infection, and hemoglobin rate will be monitored in both study groups in order to adjust the final sample size calculation.The randomization list is generated prior to the beginning of the study.The interpretation of the PCR reading is blinded or masked with regard to the treatment allocation of the patients.An independent data safety and monitoring board (DSMB) will review all safety data.The following procedures will be used to ensure an unbiased assignment of treatment safety and efficacy:Prevalence of placental malaria Safety profile of DHA-PQ and AL: Adverse events for each study drug will be recorded at all schedules and unscheduled visits.Low birth weight. At delivery each baby will be weighted: The prevalence of low birth weight will be compared between the two groups. Low birth weight will be defined as a birth weight less than 2500 g.P. falciparum infection (microscopy and PCR) at delivery: Malaria case will be defined as the presence of P. falciparum at any stage, regardless of clinical signs. The prevalence of peripheral parasitemia at delivery will be compared between the two groups.Maternal peripheral Maternal anemia at delivery. The prevalence of maternal anemia at delivery will be compared between the two groups. Anemia will be defined as hemoglobin < 11 g/dL.Pregnant women in the second and third trimesters fulfilling the inclusion criteria will be randomized to one of the following groups:Prior to each IPTp-SP dose administration, a blood sample will be collected for malaria infection screening using US-RDT and microscopy, Hb measurement, and filter paper confection for parasite genotyping. The date of the next IPTp-SP administration will be planned accordingly and the sequences repeated until delivery. Pregnant women with a positive US-RDT will be treated with a full course of DHA-PQ over 3 days. The first dose will be administered under direct observation during ANC and the subsequent doses of the intervention on days 2 and 3 will be taken unsupervised at home. The treatment observance will be assessed by the field worker at the end of the treatment. In addition, a questionnaire on health and socio-demographic characteristics will be administered as well as a physical examination. A phone call as a reminder will be made 1 week prior to the scheduled date for the second dose of IPTp-SP. If the participant is not reachable, the field worker will visit the household in order to remind the visit date. The objective is to increase the number of IPTp-SP doses per woman.In case of signs and symptoms suggestive of malaria infection, the nurse will follow the NMCP recommendations. An HRP-2 RDT will be performed and the participant treated with a full course of AL if positive. The first dose will be administered under direct observation at the ANC clinic, and the subsequent doses on days 2 and 3 will be taken unsupervised at home. Before treatment and regardless of the RDT result, the nurse will systematically collect a blood sample for hemoglobin measurement, microscopy, and filter paper for subsequent genotyping. Blood slides will be read after and treatment will be based on the result of RDTs as recommended by the NMCP in peripheral centers. In addition, a questionnaire on health and socio-demographic characteristics will be administered as well as a physical examination. No reminder will be used for the next ANC visit/IPT-SP dose date.One month after the first ANC visit with the first IPT-SP dose administration, the participant will be invited to the health facility for screened for malaria infection using the US-RDT. From that and at monthly intervals up to the last week of gestation, the pregnant women will be encouraged to visit the ANC clinic where the study nurse will perform a systematic screening using US-RDT and treatment with a full course of DHA-PQ if positive. The first dose will be administered under direct observation during ANC and the subsequent doses on days 2 and 3 will be taken unsupervised at home. The assessment of the treatment observance will be checked by the field worker at the end of the treatment. Before treatment and regardless of the US-RDT result during scheduled and unscheduled visits, the nurse will systematically collect a blood sample for hemoglobin measurement, microscopy, and filter paper for subsequent genotyping.After the first IPT-SP dose administration, the date of the second one will be scheduled. No additional screening will be performed in this group. In case of signs and symptoms suggestive of malaria infection, the nurse will follow the NMCP recommendations. An HRP-2 RDT will then be performed and the participant treated with a full course of AL if positive. The first dose will be administered under direct observation during ANC and the subsequent doses on days 2 and 3 will be taken unsupervised at home. Before treatment and regardless of the RDT result during scheduled and unscheduled visits, the nurse will systematically collect a blood sample for hemoglobin measurement, microscopy, and filter paper spot for subsequent genotyping.Irrespective of the study group, field workers will visit the treated participant on day 3  in order to assess uptake and compliance to treatment by administering a short questionnaire to check the empty packaging of the treatment. If the woman is severely ill at the time of the visit , they will be referred to the health facility for further care. In order to minimize the non-response in group 2, we will collect a blood sample (microscopy and blood spots) in all pregnant women regardless of the study group at fixed schedule visits: day 60 and day 80.The follow-up will end at the time of delivery. All study participants will be encouraged to deliver at the health facility that provides obstetric care. Mobile phone numbers will be obtained from each study participant as a means of communication. Women will be encouraged to call the field worker as soon as they enter labor in case of transport issues. In this case, the field worker will organize transport to the study health facility for obstetric care. A blood sample will be collected just before delivery for the detection of peripheral malaria infection (blood slide and blood spot on filter paper) and hemoglobin measurement. In addition, a placenta biopsy will be collected at delivery. The nurses will examine and weigh all newborns in order to measure one of the clinical outcomes. The same information will be collected as much as possible for those not delivering at the health facilities. The date of birth and date of examination and the date of data collection will be recorded. Figure All data capture and management will be standardized across the study sites and considered privileged and confidential. The study participant will be attributed a unique identity number (ID). Once a unique number has been assigned, the nurse will match this number to their records. They will also keep a record of all eligible pregnant women in each village and update their status within the trial on a regular basis, e.g., keep note of ANC attendance, RDTs, and treatment visits, whether delivered and left the study or not, etc. All data will be double entered using OpenClinica® databases at each site. Consistency checks will be performed, and any outliers and missing data points will be checked against the original forms and subsequently amended in the dataset. Efforts will be made to minimize the amount of missing data in the trial, and whenever possible, information on the reason for missing data obtained. No adjustments will be made for missing outcome data, but missing data may be imputed for covariates.We have assumed that this intervention will decrease placental malaria from 40 to 25%, with 80% power and at the 5% significance level, 152 pregnant women per group will be needed. With 10% of lost to follow-up, 170 pregnant women will be needed per arm.The randomization will ensure a balanced distribution of baseline characteristics between the two groups. A descriptive methodology will be used to analyze feasibility outcomes. Variables such as completion of the study participants recruitment within 12 months, the percentage of refusals, perception, and acceptability will be summarized per group. The primary clinical outcome will compare the prevalence of placental malaria  in each group and will be examined with logistic regression. This will be adjusted by gravidity, parity, season, and number of DHA-PQ. Appropriate statistical methods will be used to account for the influence of potential confounders .The secondary clinical outcomes are pilot endpoints to include incidence rates (mean hemoglobin and birth weight), molecular and parasitological endpoints, safety, determinants of poor coverage of IPTP-SP, vector control effectiveness, and adverse events. Adverse events and serious adverse events will be monitored, managed, and recorded during the study. All study participants who receive at least one dose of the study drug will be included in the safety analysis. They will be recorded and tabulated for each treatment group. All parasitological data will be included in the parasitological analyses. For the evaluation of placental malaria and low birth weight in newborns, logistic regression will be performed while for the evaluation of the occurrence of malaria cases in pregnant women during the follow-up, Poisson regression will be implemented. The stratification or adjustment factors will be among others: the number of doses of IPTg-SP, the season of malaria transmission, and the gravidity. A statistical model will be used for the phone reminder by adjusting the number of calls  that the woman in the intervention group received before coming to this ANC. In this model, the number of calls for women in the control group will be 0. For the qualitative study, the acceptability will be assessed through focus group discussion and in-depth interviews. Topics covered by the in-depth interviews will comprise many components such as experience and opinions of the trial intervention groups, perceptions of the acceptability of the trial intervention, and implications for implementation. The interview guide will be used to collect data from pregnant women, health care workers, community health care workers, and traditional healers. The theoretical framework of acceptability developed by Mandeep Sekhon, Martin Cartwright, and Jill J. Francis will be used to assess acceptability. In this study, we will analyze the acceptability through the dimension of the burden, ethical consequences, experience, opportunity cost, intention, and affective attitude. The analysis will focus on the barriers and factors limiting adherence to IPTp-SP uptake.ClinicalTrials.gov registry. Results will be disseminated via press releases and reports.Dissemination of project results will target various audiences, including scientific communities, decision-makers, and public health authorities in Burkina Faso; health workers; and members of the public directly impacted by the results. A strategic plan will be prepared to support the mass dissemination of trial results to the various target audiences detailed above. A commitment to publish scientific results will be top of mind, with peer-reviewed open-access publications, a project-specific website, meetings, and conferences serving as avenues with which to share findings with various publics. EDCTP forums will be exploited. Clinical trial details will be shared on the Successful control of malaria in pregnancy could save the lives of mothers and babies and is an essential part of antenatal care in endemic areas. In sub-Saharan Africa, many interventions such as IPTp-SP and ITNs have proven to be efficient at reducing malaria in pregnancy burden but adherence to recommended policies remains poor , 34. TheThe national ethic committee approved the study protocol version V0.1 BF on 02 September 2019. The recruitment started on August 31, 2020, and will cover a period of 1 year  followed by 6 months of follow-up.


Music therapy is an effective way to treat the gait disorders caused by Parkinson’s disease. Rhythm music stimulation, therapeutic singing, and therapeutic instrument performance are often used in clinical practice. The mechanisms of music therapy on the gait of patients with Parkinson’s disease include the compensation mechanism of cerebellum recruitment, rhythm entrainment, acceleration of motor learning, stimulation of neural coherence, and increase of cortical activity. All mechanisms work together to complete the intervention of music therapy on patients’ gait and help patients to recover better. In this paper, the effect of music therapy on gait disorders in Parkinson’s disease patients was reviewed, and some suggestions were put forward. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a central nervous system disease characterized by low mortality and a high disability rate, with a prevalence rate of about 0.3% . Older aPD is mainly triggered by the depletion and loss of dopamine (DA) neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) and the accumulation of cytoplasmic inclusion bodies in Lewy body (LB) neurons. PD patients usually have gait disorders and cognitive problems. Gait disorders can have a serious negative impact on their daily lives and are characterized by a shorter stride length, slower gait, and an unstable center of gravity , which aMusic is a sound wave composed of elements such as melody, rhythm, and harmony, and is defined as a melody consisting of a continuous combination of tones, arranged periodically . Music aMT can be divided into active and receptive treatments, depending on the treatment method. Active therapy involves patients playing musical instruments and participating in singing and opera performances under the guidance of a music therapist in a self-fulfilling form. It is a process involving all the sensory organs. The melody and rhythm of music are used as specific stimuli to obtain certain motor and emotional responses, thus combining the movement and stimulation of different sensory pathways, i.e., auditory and tactile (multisensory stimulation). Receptive therapy does not require the patient to actively participate in music performance or singing activities, just to listen to music . ReceptiCurrent clinical treatment of gait disorders in PD patients consists mainly of Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS), Therapeutic Singing (TS), and Therapeutic Instrumental Music Playing (TIMP), treating patients by synchronizing or asynchronizing their walking rhythms with music to adjust walking parameters in this way .RAS is a Neurological Music Therapy (NMT) technology that refers to auditory rhythm cues to promote the synchronization of gait movement  and is tTS is a spontaneous behavior in which the patient actively completes the vocalization, an internal cue that differs from external cues, such as listening to rhythmic music. Patients can sing loudly or in their minds and synchronize their walk with the pace of the singing, which has large variability, at any time according to the adjustment of the state of patients, and the synchronized rhythm. Compared with external cues, singing does not require any equipment to play music, nor does it require the difficult task of consistently synchronizing with the music rhythm. It can be controlled according to the patient’s personal rhythm, which reduces spatial and temporal variability  and is eTIMP has been used in several neurological disorders, including PD, in which patients actively play rhythmic melodies or beats to improve overall and fine motor skills through rhythmic entrainment. Playing musical instruments can provide immediate auditory feedback . The insBasal ganglia (BG) is generally considered to be the timing system of a beat  and is iAccording to the MT brain stem reticular structure theory, musical rhythm stimulation activates BG in the brain stem reticular structure. The rhythm, melody, mode, and other factors in music are transmitted to the brain through the hearing cells, and the brain processes the different elements in different regions. The gait training exercise is performed under the cue of music, which requires coordination of the connection between movement and the auditory center, and the connection is the mechanism of MT acting on PD patients’ gait intervention. At present, there are many explanations for the gait intervention mechanism of MT in PD patients, which can be divided into the following: (1) compensation mechanism of cerebellum recruitment, (2) the underlying mechanism involves rhythm entrainment, (3) accelerated motor learning, (4) stimulating neural coherence, (5) increased cortical activity, etc. .Since BG is damaged in the brainstem of PD patients and the cerebellum is capable of processing temporal perception and motor execution, the temporal rhythmic perception of musical rhythms and performing synchronized movements are mainly accomplished by recruiting the cerebellum to compensate for the missing function. Braunlich et al.  investigThe cerebellum is the central structure that controls internal time, in which the neo-cerebellum is able to process time and is also one of the clock mechanisms of the brain. The medial part of the cerebellum, the spinal cord, is mainly involved in sensory-motor processing, including motor timing. In contrast to the rhythm perception of the BG, the cerebellum performs more complex perceptual timekeeping processing, such as explicit and implicit timing . ExpliciThe musical rhythm serves as an activation signal to stimulate the PD patient’s motor system to synchronize with the musical rhythm. In practice, this rhythmic entrainment synchronizes the walking movement with the musical rhythm and thus intervenes in the patient’s gait. “Entrainment” in physics refers to the locking of the frequencies of two moving oscillators in a stable rhythm or period, which have their frequencies or periods of movement when they move independently and a common period when they interact . “RhythmMusic brings out different feelings in people. Often, listening to the right music during motor learning is more likely to increase people’s motor learning efficiency. This is because when people listen to the rhythm of music, the MA in the brain will become active, and the auditory environment and incentive effect of music may lead to the acceleration of motor learning . The musWhen listening to music, music stimulates the nerve to produce excitement. These neural networks are coherent and orderly, and work together to play a role in the coordination of the human body’s motor system in the synchronous walking movement with rhythm music and intervene in gait. Braunlich et al.  studied Perceiving musical rhythms is a process of perceiving time and walking in sync with it is a process of integrating the timing and sequence of movements that work through the relevant areas of the cerebral cortex. Rhythm music combines the sensory cortex and motor cortex regions. Grahn et al.  exploredDuring the synchronization of movements with rhythmic music, the brain needs to determine the order and time of each movement, which is a neural activity process that requires a high degree of integration of movement time and sequence. In terms of the sequence of actions, the frontal-parietal network consisting of the lateral prefrontal and inferior parietal areas, BG, and cerebellum were more active during actions. The perceptual-motor time was more closely related to SMA, right inferior frontal gyrus, central anterior sulcus, and bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG). In complex rhythmic movements, such as discrete rhythmic movements, the cerebral cortex is divided into action sequences and perceptual movement time zones, and this pattern of partitioning is more pronounced than with sequential rhythmic movements . When moDue to the degeneration of DA neurons in the SNpc of PD patients and reduced DA content in the striatum , there is an association between DA system dysfunction and motor synchronization deficits . The whoIn conclusion, music therapy can effectively improve the effect of gait disorders in PD patients. However, there are still methodological problems in previous studies, such as small sample size and few objective physiological evaluation indicators. There are also still questions regarding the mechanism of action, such as which is the main mechanism of action under different stimulation conditions and whether the others are also involved in auditory and motor processing and learning.To solve these problems, we can use more objective physiological indicators in future studies to assess the effectiveness of intervention effects, and it is also important to extend the follow-up period, including more age-diverse subjects, and exclude excessive interfering factors. Moreover, whether relevant elements of music, such as tonal audio or different types of music, can enhance specific brain regions should be studied, as well as further exploration of the mechanisms by which different types of music play a role in PD intervention.