As people grow older, they become more susceptible to cognitive decline. To combat this issue, researchers from the University of Geneva, HES-SO Geneva, and EPFL have discovered that engaging with music, both through listening and learning to play, could help maintain brain health.
Cognitive decline is marked by a decrease in brain plasticity and loss of gray matter, which houses neurons responsible for keeping the brain sharp. Once this decline commences, working memory becomes increasingly difficult to preserve. This type of memory involves tasks such as remembering a phone number long enough to write it down or translating languages. To investigate the potential of musical practice in countering this decline, the researchers recruited 132 healthy, retired individuals aged 62 to 78 who had minimal musical training in their lives.
The study aimed to include participants with no prior traces of brain plasticity related to musical learning. As Damien Marie, the study’s first author and research associate at various institutions, explains, even brief musical learning experiences can leave lasting marks on the brain, which could have skewed the results.
Participants were randomly divided into two groups: piano playing and musical awareness. The latter group focused on active listening, identifying instruments, and analyzing musical properties across diverse styles. Both groups attended hour-long classes and were assigned 30 minutes of daily homework.
Six months later, the researchers observed common effects for both interventions. Neuroimaging showed an increase in gray matter in four brain regions associated with high-level cognitive functioning in all participants, including cerebellum areas linked to working memory. According to Clara James, a study author and lecturer at various institutions, participants’ performance increased by 6%, which directly correlated with cerebellum plasticity.
Improvements were positively impacted by sleep quality, the number of lessons attended during the intervention, and the amount of daily practice. However, the researchers found that gray matter in the right primary auditory cortex—an area responsible for processing sound—remained stable in pianists while decreasing in the active listening group.
