Early music lessons can help develop brain as per new study

Updated on: Wednesday, February 13, 2013

According to a new study the younger you start music lessons, the stronger the connections in your brain.

Researchers led by Concordia University found that musical training before the age of seven has a significant effect on the development of the brain.

Those who began early had stronger connections between motor regions - the parts of the brain that help you plan and carry out movements.

The study provides strong evidence that the years between ages six and eight are a "sensitive period" when musical training interacts with normal brain development to produce long-lasting changes in motor abilities and brain structure.

Concordia University psychology professor Virginia Penhune said, "Learning to play an instrument requires coordination between hands and with visual or auditory stimuli."

"Practicing an instrument before age seven likely boosts the normal maturation of connections between motor and sensory regions of the brain, creating a framework upon which ongoing training can build," Penhune said in a statement.

Penhune in collaboration with Robert J Zatorre, a researcher at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University tested 36 adult musicians on a movement task, and scanned their brains.

Half of these musicians began musical training before age seven, while the other half began at a later age, but the two groups had the same number of years of musical training and experience.

These two groups were also compared with individuals who had received little or no formal musical training.

When comparing a motor skill between the two groups, musicians who began before age seven showed more accurate timing, even after two days of practice.

When comparing brain structure, musicians who started early showed enhanced white matter in the corpus callosum, a bundle of nerve fibres that connects the left and right motor regions of the brain.

Importantly, the researchers found that the younger a musician started, the greater the connectivity.

The brain scans showed no difference between the non-musicians and the musicians who began their training later in life; this suggests that the brain developments under consideration happen early or not at all.

Since the study tested musicians on a non-musical motor skill task, it also suggested that the benefits of early music training extend beyond the ability to play an instrument.

"This study is significant in showing that training is more effective at early ages because certain aspects of brain anatomy are more sensitive to changes at those time points," said co-author, Dr Zatorre, who is co-director of the International Laboratory for Brain Music and Sound Research.

The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Early music lessons can help develop brain as per new study

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