Be singing do-re-mi or strumming a guitar, making music is one of the best ways to stimulate a young mind.
Even though children drop out of music classes when they reach distressing adolescence, cognitive neuroscientists say that cultivating musical ability from an early age has lifelong benefits. Playing music can help children to read better, store memories and pronounce different languages.
In a recent study, scientists revealed more evidence to support this brain-building tactic. Learning music early in life, actually makes the brain more connected, inducing neural plasticity capable of improving neurological abilities beyond music.
“This study, among other studies, demonstrates how the human brain is shaped by experience,” said co-author Lutz Jäncke Inverse. Jäncke is a neuropsychology researcher at the University of Zurich.
In the study, Jäncke and his team found that musical brains have stronger structural and functional connections compared to those of non-musicians, regardless of their innate tone ability.
This high interconnection extends between and within the cerebral hemispheres and was especially strong in areas of the brain responsible for processing sounds, such as music and speech.
“… the human brain is shaped by experience. “
Music is not the only practice that promotes these connections, nor is interconnection a benefit experienced only by young people. The researchers observed similar positive brain changes induced by other activities – including ballet, golf and chess – at any age. Learning any challenging skill benefits your brain, regardless of when you start.
“The findings are important for any type of specialization in all areas where you can improve through intensive and long-term training,” said study co-author Simon Leipold Inverse. Leipold is a psychiatric researcher at Stanford University.
“With training, we can change the way our brains are connected.”
The results were published Monday in the Journal of Neuroscience.
What’s new – Previous studies exploring how music influences the structure and function of the brain have produced mixed results. Some suggest that certain parts of the musicians’ brains are larger and show extraordinary listening skills. However, many studies are relatively small, limiting their broader implications.
To boost the field, Leipold, Jäncke and their colleagues recruited 103 professional musicians and 50 non-musicians, largest sample of musician to date for a brain imaging study. Fifty-one of the musicians had absolute pitch, the rare and coveted ability to identify a tone without reference.
The team used functional MRI images at rest, structural magnetic resonance images and diffusion tensor images to calculate the connections within the participants’ brains.
Using state-of-the-art machine learning techniques, the team subsequently compared brain scans between musicians, musicians with absolute pitch and non-musicians – finding similar brain networks among those who played music.
How are the brains of the muscles different?
The two groups of musicians showed “surprisingly similar networks” in all analyzes, explains Jäncke. But contrary to what was expected, the team did not see a significant difference between regular musicians and those with absolute pitch in all measures of functional or structural connectivity.
All of the musicians’ brains were vastly more structurally and functionally connected than non-musicians, especially in areas of the brain responsible for speech and sound (especially the auditory cortices of both hemispheres). These connections “undoubtedly” improve the group’s musical skills, explains Leipold.
The music group also showed stronger connections from the auditory cortex to other areas of the brain in the frontal, parietal and temporal cortex, known to be involved in controlling higher cognitive functions, such as memory, working memory and executive functions.
Why is it important – This finding suggests that stronger connections of musical expertise may have “transfer effects” in other domains, such as language or intelligence learning, although other research suggests that the differences are “minimal”, explains Leipold.
“The sooner the musicians started practicing music, the stronger these connectivities,” says Jäncke. The age at which someone plays a violin or trombone is an important aspect of “shaping the brain and installing extraordinary functions”, he adds.
“Early music training can affect the brain at different levels, locally and globally,” says Leipold.
These positive neural connections can also result from other activities, not just music.
“We have seen similar findings in our studies with golfers, dancers, interpreters and chess players,” said Jäncke.
Music training time is not the only factor at stake.
“The current state of research suggests a highly complex interaction between genetics and environmental factors in the rise of musical expertise,” says Leipold.
Ultimately, the findings reinforce the evidence that learning new things, especially a musical instrument, has extremely positive effects on the growing brain. Leipold himself learned to play the piano as a child, although he now notes that he is “far from being a highly trained musician”.
“If someone had told me about changing my brain wiring, I could have spent more time practicing piano and less time on the football field,” Leipold reflects.
Abstract: Professional musicians are a popular model for investigating experience-dependent plasticity in large-scale human brain networks. A minority of musicians have absolute pitch, the ability to name a tone without reference. The study of absolute ear musicians provides insights into how a very specific talent is reflected in brain networks. Previous studies on the effects of musicality and the absolute ear on large-scale brain networks have produced highly heterogeneous findings regarding the location and direction of effects. This heterogeneity was probably influenced by small samples and very different methodological approaches. Here, we carry out a comprehensive multimodal assessment of the effects of musicality and absolute tone on intrinsic functional and structural connectivity using a variety of state-of-the-art multivariate methods commonly employed in the largest sample to date (n = 153 women and men participating humans; 52 musicians absolute pitch, 51 non-absolute pitch musicians and 50 non-musicians). Our results show robust effects of musicality on inter and intra-hemispheric connectivity in structural and functional networks. Crucially, most of the effects were replicable in musicians with and without an absolute tone when compared to non-musicians. However, we found no evidence of an effect of absolute tone on intrinsic functional or structural connectivity in our data: The two groups of musicians showed surprisingly similar networks in all analyzes. Our results suggest that long-term musical training is associated with robust changes in large-scale brain networks. The effects of absolute pitch on neural networks can be subtle, requiring very large samples or task-based experiments to be detected.