Want to boost your brain power? Put down that book and pick up a musical instrument. That's the upshot of new research showing that musical training promotes better mental function — at any age.
The study, by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital, is the first to use functional MRI scans to show that music lessons improve the functioning of regions of the brain associated with higher-level cognitive processes — such as learning and retaining new information, making good choices, solving problems, and planning and adjusting to changing mental demands.
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"Since executive functioning is a strong predictor of academic achievement, even more than IQ, we think our findings have strong educational implications," said researcher Nadine Gaab, of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's. "While many schools are cutting music programs and spending more and more time on test preparation, our findings suggest that musical training may actually help to set up children for a better academic future."
For the study, reported in the Public Library of Science journal PLOS ONE, Gaab and her colleagues compared 15 musically trained children, 9 to 12, with a group of 12 untrained children of the same age. The music students all played an instrument for at least two years took regular lessons, practicing an average of 3.7 hours per week. The researchers also compared 15 active professional musicians with 15 non-musicians.
The groups underwent a battery of cognitive tests and the children also had functional MRI imaging of their brains during testing. The results showed adult musicians and musically trained children showed better performance on several cognitive measures. The MRIs also showed the children with musical training showed greater activity in specific areas of the brain associated with executive functioning during a test that made them switch between mental tasks.
"Our results may also have implications for children and adults who are struggling with executive functioning, such as children with ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] or [the] elderly," said Gaab. "Future studies have to determine whether music may be utilized as a therapeutic intervention tools for these children and adults."
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