The Effects of Musical Training on Structural Brain Development
July 24th, 2009
United States
Krista L Hyde, Jason Lerch, Andrea Norton, Marie Forgeard, Ellen Winner, Alan C Evans, Gottfried Schlaug
This longitudinal study investigates how sustained musical training relates to changes in brain structure over time. It compares developmental trajectories of key neural regions in individuals with and without music training, providing insight into experience-dependent brain plasticity associated with long-term musical engagement.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04852.x
Posted byJai Narayan
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Abstract/Description
Long-term instrumental music training is an intense, multisensory and motor experience that offers an ideal opportunity to study structural brain plasticity in the developing brain in correlation with behavioral changes induced by training. Here, for the first time, we demonstrate structural brain changes after only 15 months of musical training in early childhood, which were correlated with improvements in musically relevant motor and auditory skills. These findings shed light on brain plasticity, and suggest that structural brain differences in adult experts (whether musicians or experts in other areas) are likely due to training-induced brain plasticity.
