Objectives To systematically evaluate the effect of music given to pregnant rats on the development of brain functions in the offspring rats and to provide scientific evidence for the application of antenatal musical training and the promotion of welfare for laboratory animals.Methods We comprehensively retrieved and collected the research literatures related to the effect of music on brain function development in offsprings of the pregnant rats from Pubmed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Wanfang, Weipu, CNKI and CBMdisc. The retrieval time was set from the foundation date of databases to 2 April, 2016. We selected literatures according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, evaluated their utilities, then extracted and qualitatively described the data. Results Seven experimental studies were selected in this study including 4 published in Chinese and 3 in English. The object laboratory animals of those studies were Wistar or SD rats. Music materials involved comfort music, classic music, violin concerto(Liangzhu/The butterfly lovers). Intervention were given to the pregnant rats roundly from the gestation until parturition. These results showed that, to some extent,music stimulations during gestation may promote the development of brain function and improve spatial memory of the offspring rats. However,expressions of some functional receptors were not significantly altered.Conclusions Appropriate music provided to the pregnant rats promote the development of brain functions in their offspring.