Source Link

Childhood Music Lessons May Provide Lifelong Boost in Brain Functioning
Released: 4/20/2011 10:20 AM EDT
Source: American Psychological Association (APA)

Research explores possible link between early musical study and cognitive benefits

Newswise — WASHINGTON — Those childhood music lessons could pay off decades later - even for those who no longer play an instrument – by keeping the mind sharper as people age, according to a preliminary study published by the American Psychological Association.

The study recruited 70 healthy adults age 60 to 83 who were divided into groups based on their levels of musical experience. The musicians performed better on several cognitive tests than individuals who had never studied an instrument or learned how to read music. The research findings were published online in the APA journal Neuropsychology.

“Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of aging,” said lead researcher Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, PhD. “Since studying an instrument requires years of practice and learning, it may create alternate connections in the brain that could compensate for cognitive declines as we get older.”

While much research has been done on the cognitive benefits of musical activity by children, this is the first study to examine whether those benefits can extend across a lifetime, said Hanna-Pladdy, a clinical neuropsychologist who conducted the study with cognitive psychologist Alicia MacKay, PhD, at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

The three groups of study participants included individuals with no musical training; with one to nine years of musical study; or with at least 10 years of musical training. All of the participants had similar levels of education and fitness and didn’t show any evidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

All of the musicians were amateurs who began playing an instrument at about 10 years of age. More than half played the piano while approximately a quarter had studied woodwind instruments such as the flute or clarinet. Smaller numbers performed with stringed instruments, percussion or brass instruments.

The high-level musicians who had studied the longest performed the best on the cognitive tests, followed by the low-level musicians and non-musicians, revealing a trend relating to years of musical practice. The high-level musicians had statistically significant higher scores than the non-musicians on cognitive tests relating to visuospatial memory, naming objects and cognitive flexibility, or the brain’s ability to adapt to new information.

The brain functions measured by the tests typically decline as the body ages and more dramatically deteriorate in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. The results “suggest a strong predictive effect of high musical activity throughout the lifespan on preserved cognitive functioning in ad¬vanced age,” the study stated.

Half of the high-level musicians still played an instrument at the time of the study, but they didn’t perform better on the cognitive tests than the other advanced musicians who had stopped playing years earlier. This suggests that the duration of musical study was more important than whether musicians continued playing at an advanced age, Hanna-Pladdy says.

“Based on previous research and our study results, we believe that both the years of musical participation and the age of acquisition are critical,” Hanna-Pladdy says. “There are crucial periods in brain plasticity that enhance learning, which may make it easier to learn a musical instrument before a certain age and thus may have a larger impact on brain development.”

The preliminary study was correlational, meaning that the higher cognitive performance of the musicians couldn’t be conclusively linked to their years of musical study. Hanna-Pladdy, who has conducted additional studies on the subject, says more research is needed to explore that possible link.

At the time of the study, Hanna-Pladdy was an assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Kansas Medical Center and a research faculty member of the Landon Center on Aging. She is now an assistant professor in neurology at Emory University School of Medicine. MacKay, a former research assistant at the University of Kansas Medical Center, is now an assistant professor of psychology at Tulsa Community College.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington,
D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 154,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.



Article: “The Relation Between Instrumental Musical Activity and Cognitive Aging,” Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, PhD, and Alicia MacKay, PhD, University of Kansas Medical Center; Neuropsychology, Vol. 25, No. 3

WOW, thanks Gene. I reely feal edgumacated now!

I'm glad to hear from you, Jeff. I was about to send out a search party. It took me nearly a day to find the new forum. I kept trying my old bookmark. I was wondering if you were doing the same thing.

That was really interesting, thanks for sharing

On the topic, people say that they perform better in tasks, work, tests etc when they have music on in the background.

This has been proven to be incorrect. What is better, and been scientifically tested, is to listen to music before the task etc, is undertaken. Reason being, the music gets the brain 'warmed-up' and 'in-gear'.

For this reason, fast music works better than slower tempo music, but the genre does not matter.

Fast music makes the brain think quicker, so relatively you can slow down time, since you think so much quicker, this is only after listening to the music for around 5-10mins, not during.

It's always been obvious to me that music in the background while you're doing something is a distraction.

The genre doesn't matter?

What if someone's hearing metal and someone's hearing classic music?
That's totally different music.

What? Studying music, or background music?

Studying: Music theory is music theory.
Background: I'd say it matters. If you hate the genre, it can't do you much good. If you like the genre, it won't bother you....Unless, as with me, any background music distracts you.

I meant background music, because studying music is, as you just said, studying music theory.

I said that because sometimes I am in some caffes or bars just chillin with my friends where the music that's playin is just awful, it's just commercial/trash/bubble-gum music and I just hate it (makes me wanna leave),
and hearing something that you don't like, besides of being anoying, is one of the best ways to distract yourself.

I know there is many rock and other weird musicans who knows musical theory very well .

I can lisent all kind music from classical to heavy metal - while writing/reading doing my studying - no interuption (exept my little brother if he comes in my room i cant concentrate at all)

Only when i have to study for exams or write some serious works - i lisent to ZEN or nature sounds - i have 10 CD's with nature sounds - my favorites are thunder and rain / rainforest and birds. - really helps to me concetrate.

Lately i find my self watching videos and playing computer games at same time - or even worse watching video at same time when writing homeworks or doing research but well i can do both no problem - maybe icould do better if i could concentrate on one thing but i cant i need multiple things to do at same time.