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Studies show that learning to play musical instruments stimulates different areas of the brain

The benefits of music are a factor that encourages people to learn to play a musical instrument or, at least, to express this desire at some point in their lives. And new studies show that this might be a good idea. Music positively affects the structure and function of different regions of the brain, altering the way they communicate and the brain's reaction to different sensory stimuli.

Music learning has the potential to promote neural plasticity, as well as becoming an educational tool, addressing learning difficulties.

Three studies on this topic were presented, in 2013, at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Society for Neuroscience, in free translation), showing that playing a musical instrument for a long period generates new processes in the brain at different stages of life and that impact creativity, cognition and learning. Find out more about the three studies and see the benefits of playing an instrument:

The benefit of starting early

Yunxin Wang of the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University in China and his colleagues investigated the effects of musical learning on the brain structures of 48 Chinese adults aged between 19 and 21 years. All of them had studied music for at least a year between their three and 15 years.

Through this study, it was discovered that musical learning among young people and children strengthens the brain, especially the regions that influence language skills and executive functions.

The brain volume of regions related to listening and self-awareness seemed greater in people who began musical studies before the age of 7 years. According to the researchers, this suggests that musical training in children can be used as a therapeutic tool.

For Wang, the study provides evidence that children's music learning can change the structure of the brain's cortex. In an interview with the Medscape Medical NewsWang said he has a lot of research showing that music training has several cognitive benefits, such as better memory, better pitch discrimination, and selective attention.

The senses influenced by music

Musical training improves the nervous system's ability to integrate information from multiple senses. While previous research on the impact of musical learning has focused on audiovisual processing, research carried out at the University of Quebec, Canada, goes further, seeking to verify the relationship with all the senses.

To measure how much music training can affect multisensory processing, the researchers assigned two tasks to a group of trained musicians and a group of people who are not musicians—these tasks dealt with touching and listening at the same time. As much as the tests have shown that the capabilities of detecting and discriminating information are the same for a single sense, musicians were able to better separate auditory information from tactile information received simultaneously in relation to non-musicians.

The researcher responsible for this study stated that the results obtained will clearly impact the field of rehabilitation, whether for people with disabilities in one or both modalities, whether with those who are recovering from a heart attack, degenerative disease or even for those who are growing old.

Human creativity and musical improvisation

The last study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to observe the musical improvisation of 39 pianists with varying levels of training in improvisation. It was found that more experienced improvisers showed greater functional connectivity with other motor, premotor and prefrontal regions, according to age and general experience as a pianist.

Ana Pinho, from the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, explained that the findings indicate that improvisation training has specific effects on the neural network involved in musical creativity. She also said that many of the pianists with more experience in improvisation have lower levels of activity in the associated areas, suggesting that the creation process can be automatic and done with less effort as there is greater connectivity.

According to the researcher, this study raised questions about how and to what extent creative behavior can be learned and automated.