Musical instruments improve brain

William Atkins
Friday, 17 April 2009 19:09

Science - Biology

They found that structural changes occurred in the brains of the musicians, which did not occur in the non-musicians’ brains. The authors think that these “structural adaptations” could be “in response to long-term skill acquisition and the repetitive rehearsal of those skills.”

In other words, auditory and motor areas of the brain that are associated with hearing and dexterity grew larger in the children who had the keyboard lessons when compared to the children who didn’t have the lessons.

The children that took the lessons also performed better at various tasks related to manual dexterity (similar to the playing of the keyboard) than did the children without the lessons.

They conclude, “This hypothesis is supported by the strong association we found between structural differences, musician status, and practice intensity, as well as the wealth of supporting animal data showing structural changes in response to long-term motor training. However, only future experiments can determine the relative contribution of predisposition and practice.”

The New Scientist article “Even budding Mozarts need to practice” quotes Dr. Schlaug. He says, “This is the first paper showing differential brain development in children who learned and played a musical instrument versus those that did not.” [New Scientist, March 21-27, 2009, page 10]

In essence, this result shows that hard work and repetition helps children develop musical skills because the brain actually develops to accommodate this musical training. In other words, mental exercise helps the brain.

Such mental exercise and hard work no doubt could be applied to all age levels. To learn more about mental exercise and its benefits to the brain, please go to The Franklin Institute website “Reclaim Your Brain.”