Music and brain

Just a few years of early musical training benefits the brain later in life

November 7, 2013

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(Credit: Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory)

Older adults who took music lessons as children but haven’t actively played an instrument in decades have a faster brain response to a speech sound than individuals who never played an instrument, according to a  new study by Northwestern University researchers.

They found that the more years study participants spent playing instruments as youth, the faster their brains responded to a speech sound.

As people grow older, they often experience changes in the brain that compromise hearing. For instance, the brains of older adults show a slower response to fast-changing sounds, which is important for interpreting speech.

For the study, 44 healthy adults, ages 55-76, listened to a synthesized speech syllable (“da”) while researchers measured electrical activity in the auditory brainstem. This region of the brain processes sound and is a hub for cognitive, sensory, and reward information./.../