Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website
Music lessons grow brain
A number of studies have shown that adult musicians have different brains to adult non-musicians, but they haven’t answered the question of whether the brain differences are innate or developed through practice. A new study does just that. The study scanned the brains of 31 musically untrained six-year-olds, of whom 15 then received weekly keyboard lessons for 15 months. Brain scans taken at the end of that period revealed that auditory and motor areas of the brain linked respectively with hearing and dexterity grew larger only in the trainee musicians. The musicians also outperformed the others at specific tasks related to manual dexterity and discrimination of sounds.
Hyde, K.L. et al. 2009. Musical Training Shapes Structural Brain Development. Journal of Neuroscience, 29 (10), 3019–3025.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16767-music-lessons-provide-a-workout-for-the-brain.html
Time invested in practicing pays off for young musicians
A study involving 41 eight- to eleven-year-olds who had studied either piano or a string instrument for a minimum of three years and 18 children who had no instrumental training, although they had the same amount of time in general music classes at school, has found that the musicians were not only better at tasks of auditory discrimination and finger dexterity, but also had superior verbal ability and nonverbal reasoning skills. Moreover, the longer and more intensely the child had studied the instrument, the better they scored on these tests.
Forgeard, M., Winner, E., Norton, A. & Schlaug, G. 2008. Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning. PLoS ONE 3(10): e3566. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003566
Full text available at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003566
http://www.physorg.com/news145024134.html
Strong links between arts education and cognitive development
The Dana Consortium study, a 3 year study by cognitive neuroscientists from seven universities, has been investigating the effects of music, dance, and drama education on other types of learning. The researchers have identified eight key points:
- An interest in a performing art leads to a high state of motivation that produces the sustained attention necessary to improve performance and the training of attention that leads to improvement in other domains of cognition.
- Genetic studies have begun to yield candidate genes that may help explain individual differences in interest in the arts.
- Specific links exist between high levels of music training and the ability to manipulate information in both working and long-term memory; these links extend beyond the domain of music training.
- In children, there appear to be specific links between the practice of music and skills in geometrical representation, though not in other forms of numerical representation.
- Correlations exist between music training and both reading acquisition and sequence learning. One of the central predictors of early literacy, phonological awareness, is correlated with both music training and the development of a specific brain pathway.
- Training in acting appears to lead to memory improvement through the learning of general skills for manipulating semantic information.
- Adult self-reported interest in aesthetics is related to a temperamental factor of openness, which in turn is influenced by dopamine-related genes.
- Learning to dance by effective observation is closely related to learning by physical practice, both in the level of achievement and also the neural substrates that support the organization of complex actions. Effective observational learning may transfer to other cognitive skills.
You can download the complete report at http://www.dana.org/news/publications/publication.aspx?id=10760
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/df-dfr030408.php
Why music training helps language
Several studies have come out in recent years suggesting that giving children music training can improve their language skills. A new study supports these findings by showing how. The latest study shows that music triggers changes in the brain stem, a very early stage in the processing pathway for both music and language. It has previously been thought that the automatic processing occurring at this level was not particularly malleable, and the strength of neuron connections there was fixed.
And in another study, researchers have found evidence for more commonality in the brain networks involved in music and language. One network, based in the temporal lobes, helps us memorize information in both language and music— for example, words and meanings in language and familiar melodies in music. The other network, based in the frontal lobes, helps us unconsciously learn and use the rules that underlie both language and music, such as the rules of syntax in sentences, and the rules of harmony in music.
Musacchia, G., Sams, M., Skoe, E. & Kraus, N. 2007. Musicians have enhanced subcortical auditory and audiovisual processing of speech and music. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 104, 15894-15898.
Miranda, R.A. & Ullman, M.T. 2007. Double dissociation between rules and memory in music: An event-related potential study. NeuroImage, 38 (2), 331-345.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070926123908.htm (1st)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/gumc-tat092707.php (2nd)
Early music training 'tunes' auditory system
Mandarin is a tonal language, that is, the pitch pattern is as important as the sound of the syllables in determining the meaning of a word. In a small study, a Mandarin word was presented to 20 adults as they watched a movie. All were native English speakers with no knowledge of Mandarin, but half had at least six years of musical instrument training starting before the age of 12, while half had minimal or no musical training. As the subjects watched the movie, the researchers measured the accuracy of their brainstem ability to track three differently pitched "mi" sounds. Those who were musically trained were far better at tracking the three different tones than the non-musicians. The study is the first to provide concrete evidence that playing a musical instrument significantly enhances the brainstem's sensitivity to speech sounds, and supports the view that experience with music at a young age can "fine-tune" the brain's auditory system. The findings are in line with previous studies suggesting that musical experience can improve one's ability to learn tone languages in adulthood, and are also consistent with studies revealing anomalies in brainstem sound encoding in some children with learning disabilities which can be improved by auditory training. The findings are also noteworthy for implicating the brainstem in processing that has been thought of as exclusively involving the cortex.
Wong, P.C.M., Skoe, E., Russo, N.M., Dees, T. & Kraus, N. 2007. Musical experience shapes human brainstem encoding of linguistic pitch patterns. Nature Neuroscience, 10, 420-422.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/nu-rfm031207.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20lang.html
Evidence musical training affects brain development
A study that examined 12 young children (4—6 year olds) over the course of a year found measurable cognitive differences in those taking Suzuki music lessons compared to those having no musical training outside school. The Suzuki children not only showed greater improvement over the year in melody, harmony and rhythm processing but also in general memory skills such as literacy, verbal memory, visuospatial processing, mathematics and IQ, suggesting that musical training is having an effect on how the brain gets wired for general cognitive functioning related to memory and attention. Brain activity showed greater development consistent with establishing a neural network associated with sound categorization and/or involuntary attention.
Fujioka, T., Ross, B., Kakigi, R., Pantev, C. & Trainor, L.J. 2006. One year of musical training affects development of auditory cortical-evoked fields in young children. Brain, 129, 2593-2608.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060920093024.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-09/oup-fet091906.php
Babies detect unfamiliar music rhythms easier than adults
According to a recent study, six-month-old babies can detect subtle variations in the complex rhythm patterns of Balkan folkdance tunes as easily as can adult Bulgarian and Macedonian U.S. immigrants, but other Western adults find it exceedingly difficult. A follow-up study has reported that by the time the babies are a year old, their performance more closely resembles adults. However, brief exposure to foreign music still enables 12-month-olds, but not adults, to perceive rhythmic distinctions in foreign musical contexts.
Hannon, E.E. & Trehub, S.E. 2005. Tuning in to musical rhythms: Infants learn more readily than adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102 (35), 12639-12643. Published online before print August 16, 2005.
Hannon, E.E. & Trehub, S.E. 2005. Metrical Categories in Infancy and Adulthood. Psychological Science, 16(1), 48-55.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-08/cuns-bdu081205.php
Playing music helps the understanding of language
A study involving adult musicians and non-musicians matched by age, sex, general language ability and intelligence found that musicians could make the rapid auditory distinctions necessary to distinguish similar word syllables (like "da" and "ba") more accurately and quickly than non-musicians. This is the first study to demonstrate that musical training improves how the brain processes the spoken word. The researchers suggest the finding could lead to improving the reading ability of children who have dyslexia and other reading problems.
Gabrieli, J. et al. 2005. Presented at the 18th Annual U.S. Psychiatric & Mental Health Congress in Las Vegas, NV.
Early music instruction raises child’s IQ
A new study confirms earlier research supporting the benefits of early music instruction. The study involved 144 children, 6 years old at the start of the study. They were given free weekly voice or piano lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Another group of 6-year-olds was given free training in weekly drama classes, while a fourth group received no extra classes during the study period. Before any classes were given, all the children were tested using the full Weschler intelligence test. At the end of the school year (their first school year), the children were retested. All had an IQ increase of at least 4.3 points on average (a consequence of going to school). Children who took drama lessons scored no higher than those who had no extra lessons, but those who took music lessons scored on average 2.7 points higher than the children who did not take music lessons. Those in the drama group did however show substantial improvement in adaptive social behavior.
Schellenberg, E.G. 2004. Music Lessons Enhance IQ. Psychological Science, 15 (8), 511-514.
http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.htm3?article_id=218392326
Music instruction aids verbal memory
Research has shown that the region of the brain involved in verbal memory is larger in adult musicians than in those who are not musicians. Now a new study finds that children with music training had significantly better verbal memory than those without such training. The study involved 90 boys between six and 15. Half were in the school’s string orchestra and had one to five years training in classical music; the rest had no such training or experience. The boys with musical training scored about 20% higher on a test of their ability to learn new words and did slightly better at recalling words after a 30-minute break. No differences were found between the two groups in a test of visual memory.
A year later, the researchers retested the 45 boys who had been in the orchestra, including 9 who had dropped out, and 17 boys from the nonmusician group who had joined the orchestra. These 17, who had significantly lower verbal memory scores on the previous test, had made the greatest progress over the course of the year. Those who stayed with the orchestra also improved their scores, while those who had dropped out showed no improvement - but their performance was still better than those who had never played. The researchers suggest that music training during childhood helps reorganize/develop the left temporal lobe, facilitating the cognitive processing that occurs there, namely, verbal memory.
Ho, Y-C., Cheung, M-C. & Chan, A.S. 2003. Music Training Improves Verbal but Not Visual Memory: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Explorations in Children. Neuropsychology, 17 (3).
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/apa-mia072103.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/29/health/29MENT.html