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 The
Healing
Power

Music
of

O
New therapies are using rhythm, beat and melody to help patients
with brain disorders recover language, hearing, motion and emotion
By William Forde Thompson and Gottfried Schlaug
Il lUST R AT IO NS BY Ch RIS SIE M ACD O N A l D

One day when Laurel was 11, she began to feel dizzy
while playing with her twin sister and some friends in
a park on Cape Cod. She sat down, and one of her
friends asked her if she was okay. And then Laurel’s
memory went blank. A sudden blockage in a key blood
vessel leading to the brain had caused a massive stroke.
Blood could no longer reach regions crucial for lan-
guage and communication, resulting in permanent
damage. Laurel was still able to understand language,
but she struggled to vocalize even a single word, and
what she managed to say was often garbled or not what
she had intended.

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Except when she sang.
Through a type of treatment called melodic intonation lennium b.c. appear to depict the use of music to enhance
therapy, Laurel learned to draw on undamaged brain regions fertility in women. Shamans in the highland tropical forests
that moderate the rhythmic and tonal aspects of language, by- of Peru use chanting as their primary tool for healing, and
passing the speech pathways on the left side of her brain that the Ashanti people of Ghana accompany healing ceremonies
were destroyed. In other words, she found her way back to lan- with drumming.
guage through music. Much of the power of music-based treatment lies in its
The therapeutic program that helped Laurel— like the oth- ability to meld numerous subtle benefits in a single, engaging
ers we focus on in our work as scientists and clinicians — is one package [see boxes beginning on this page]. Music is perhaps
of a new class of music-based treatments based directly on the unrivaled by any other form of human expression in the range
biology of neurological impairment and recovery. These treat-
ments aim to restore functions lost to injury or neurological
disorders by enlisting healthy areas of the brain and sometimes
even by reviving dysfunctional circuitry. As evidence accumu-
lates about the effectiveness of these techniques, clinicians and MUSICAl ATTRIBUTES
therapists from a variety of fields have begun to incorporate
them into their practices, most notably music therapists, who
Music is a uniquely effective tool
are at the intersection of music and health and important for treating neurological impairment
mediators of these interventions, as well as speech therapists because it recruits nearly every
and physical therapists. And among the beneficiaries are peo- region of the brain. Imaging studies
ple diagnosed with stroke, autism, tinnitus, Parkinson’s dis- show that both listening to and
ease and dementia. making music spur activity and foster
As scientists learn more about the effect of music on cogni-
connections across a wide swath of
tive and motor functions and mental states, they can tailor
these therapies for each disorder, targeting specific brain inju- brain regions typically involved in
ries or dysfunctions. In Laurel’s case, the treatments were de- emotion, reward, cognition, sensation
signed to trigger, over time, the development of alternative neu- and movement. Here are seven ways
ral pathways in healthy parts of the brain that would compen- music might work to benefit our mind
sate for the lost pathways in the damaged language centers. But
the ultimate aim was to help her recapture as much as she could
and brain: 
of the world that had collapsed around her that day in the park.

Music as Medicine
Across cultures and throughout history, music listening
and music making have played a role in treating disorders of of its defi ning characteristics, from its melody and rhythm to
the mind and body. Egyptian frescoes from the fourth mil- its emotional and social nature. The treatments that take ad-
vantage of these attributes are rewarding, motivating, acces-
sible and inexpensive, and basically free of side effects, too.
FAST FACTS The attractive quality of music also encourages patients to
MUSICAL PRESCRIPTIONS continue therapy over many weeks and months, improving
 Music can be a powerful tool in the treatment of brain disorders the chance of lasting gains.
and acquired injuries, helping patients recover language and
The view that music can be useful in treating neurological
motor skills.
impairment gained some scientific heft in a landmark study
 New music-based therapies can trigger neuroplasticity— fostering
local connections and long-range pathways that compensate for published in 2008. Psychologist Teppo Särkämö of the Univer-
impairments in damaged regions of the brain. sity of Helsinki and his team recruited 60 patients who had suf-
 The greatest benefits from therapy— cognitive, emotional and fered a stroke in the middle cerebral artery of one hemisphere.
social — come from effortful engagement with music. They split the patients into three groups: the fi rst participated

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 Music is
Physical
Music encourages
people to move with
the beat. The more Images show the arcuate fasciculus, an auditory-motor tract,
salient the beat, the in each hemisphere of a healthy musician (left) and a healthy
nonmusician, both in their early 60s, demonstrating the brain-
more sweeping and enhancing benefits of lifelong music making.
emphatic the body
movements. physical exercise can help
improve circulation, brain health, and fine
stressed syllable (“are”) assigned a higher pitch than the oth-
and gross motor function. ers. As the treatment progresses, the phrases get longer and
the frequency of the vocalizations increases, perhaps from
one syllable per second to two.
Each element of the treatment contributes to fluency by re-
in daily sessions of music listening, the second listened to au- cruiting undamaged areas of the brain. The slow changes in
diobooks every day and the third received no auditory treat- the pitch of the voice engage areas associated with perception
ment. Researchers observed the patients over two months. in the right hemisphere, which integrates sensory information
Those in the group that listened to music exhibited the great- over a longer interval than the left hemisphere does; as a con-
est recovery in verbal memory and attention. And because lis- sequence, it is particularly sensitive to slowly modulated
tening to music appears to improve memory, the hope now is sounds. The rhythmic tapping with the left hand, in turn, in-
B Y C AT h E R I N E Y. W A N A N D G O T T F R I E D S C h l A U G , I N N EU R O S C I E N T I ST, V O l . 16 , N O. 5; O C T O B E R 2 0 10

that active music making— singing, moving and synchronizing vokes a network in the right hemisphere that controls move-
to a beat— might help restore additional skills, including speech ments associated with the vocal apparatus. Benefits are often
F R O M “ M U S I C M A K I N G A S A T O O l F O R p R O M O T I N G B R A I N p l A S T I C I T Y A C R O S S T h E l I F E S pA N ,”

and motor functions in stroke patients. evident after even a single treatment session. But when per-
formed intensively over months, melodic intonation therapy
The Singing Cure also produces long-term gains that appear to arise from chang-
The variety of music-based treatment that Laurel received es in neural circuitry— the creation of alternative pathways or
springs from a remarkable observation about people who the strengthening of rudimentary ones in the brain. In effect,
have had a stroke. When a stroke affects areas of the brain
that control speech, it can leave patients with a condition
known as nonfluent aphasia, or an inability to speak fluent-
ly. And yet, as therapists over the years have noted, people Music is
with nonfluent aphasia can sometimes sing words they can-
not otherwise say.
Emotional
In the 1970s neurologist Martin Albert and speech pa- Music induces
thologists Robert Sparks and Nancy Helm (now Helm-Esta- emotional states by
brooks), then at a Veterans Administration hospital in Bos- initiating changes in
ton, recognized the therapeutic implications of this ability
the distribution of
and developed a treatment called melodic intonation thera-
py in which singing is a central element. During a typical ses-
neurochemicals that
sion, patients will sing words and short phrases set to a sim- can induce positive
ple melody while tapping out each syllable with their left moods and heightened arousal, which
hand. The melody usually involves two notes, perhaps sepa- may in turn increase the rate of change
rated by a minor third (such as the first two notes of in the brain, speeding rehabilitation.
“Greensleeves”). For example, patients might sing the phrase
“How are you?” in a simple up-and-down pattern, with the

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for patients with severe aphasia, singing trains structures and Because melodic intonation therapy seemed to work by en-
connections in the brain’s right hemisphere to assume perma- gaging the right hemisphere, researchers then surmised that
nent responsibility for a task usually handled mostly by the left. electrical or magnetic stimulation of the region might boost the
This theory has gained support in the past two decades from therapy’s power. In two recent studies that we conducted with
studies of stroke patients with nonfluent aphasia conducted by our collaborators — one in 2011 at Beth Israel Deaconess and
researchers around the world. In a study published in September Harvard and the other in 2014 at the ARC Center of Excellence
2014 by one of us (Schlaug) and his group at the Beth Israel Dea- in Cognition and Its Disorders in Sydney, Australia— research-
coness Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 11 patients ers stimulated an area in the right hemisphere called the infe-
received melodic intonation therapy; nine received no treatment. rior frontal gyrus, which helps to connect sounds with the oral,
The patients who received therapy were able to string together facial and vocal movements that produce them. For many par-
ticipants, combining melodic intonation therapy with nonin-
vasive brain stimulation yielded improvements in speech fluen-
cy after only a few sessions.
Music is The benefits of melodic intonation therapy were dramat-
Engaging ic for Laurel (who was part of a study led by Schlaug). The
stroke had destroyed much of her left hemisphere, including
Musical treatments a region crucial for language production known as Broca’s
are engrossing area. When she began therapy in 2008, she could not string
and rewarding, so together more than two or three words, and her speech was
patients are highly often ungrammatical, leaving her frustrated whenever she
tried to communicate. Her treatment plan was intensive — an
motivated to
hour and a half a day for up to five days a week, with 75 ses-
participate with sions in all. By the end of the 15-week treatment period, she
enthusiasm, focus and dedication. could speak in sentences of five to eight words, sometimes
more. Over the next several years she treated herself at home
using the techniques she learned during the sessions. Today,

When performed intensively over months, melodic

appear to arise from changes in neural circuitry—the
more than twice as many appropriate words per minute in re- eight years after her stroke, Laurel spends some of her time
sponse to a question. That same group also showed structural as a motivational speaker, giving hope and support to fellow
changes, assessed through MRI, in a right-hemisphere network stroke survivors. Her speech is not quite perfect but remark-
associated with vocalization. The laboratory is now conducting able nonetheless for someone whose stroke damaged so much
studies to compare the benefits of melodic intonation therapy of her left brain. Evaluation of the long-term benefits of com-
with other forms of therapy for patients with aphasia. bination therapy is next on researchers’ agenda.

Music and Motion

ThE AUThORS Music making can also help stroke survivors living with
impaired motor skills. In a study published in 2007 neuropsy-
WILLIAM FORDE THOMPSON is a professor of psychology at chologist and music educator Sabine Schneider and neurolo-
Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and a chief investiga- gist Eckard Altenmueller, both then at the Hannover Univer-
tor at the ARC Center of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders sity of Music, Drama and Media in Germany, asked patients
there. GOTTFRIED SCHLAUG is an associate professor of neurol- to use their movement-impaired hand to play melodies on the
ogy at harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medi- piano or tap out a rhythm on pitch-producing drum pads. Pa-
cal Center and is a leading researcher on plasticity in brain disor- tients who engaged in this intervention, called music-support-
ders and music-based treatments for neurological impairments. ed training, showed greater improvement in the timing, preci-

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 searchers around the world demonstrated a technique called
rhythmic auditory stimulation, or RAS, for people who had
Music permits trouble walking, such as stroke and Parkinson’s patients. A
therapist will fi rst ask patients to walk at a comfortable speed
Synchronization and then to an audible rhythm. Tempos that pushed patients
slightly past their comfort zone yielded the greatest improve-
Music helps listeners
ments in velocity, cadence and stride length.
synchronize rhythm Despite these encouraging outcomes, the neural mecha-
(by tapping along) and nisms that trigger improvements have been difficult to pin
melody (by singing down. Imaging work suggests that during rhythmic auditory
along), addressing stimulation, neural control of motor behavior is rerouted
problems of timing, around the basal ganglia; instead the brain stem serves as a re-
lay station that sends auditory input to motor networks in the
initiation and coordination in people with stroke,
cerebellum, which governs coordination, and to other cortical
parkinson’s disease, and other brain disorders regions that could help synchronize sound and motion.
involving sensory and motor systems.
Recovered Memory
Fewer neurological disorders inspire greater fear than de-
mentia, one of the most common diseases of the elderly. Ac-
cording to some estimates, 44 million people worldwide are
sion and smoothness of fi ne motor skills than did patients who living with dementia, a number expected to reach 135 million
relied on conventional therapy. The researchers postulated that by 2050. Alzheimer’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition,
the gains resulted from an increase in connections between accounts for more than 60 percent of the cases; multiple strokes
neurons of the sensorimotor and auditory regions. can also cause so-called vascular dementia.
Rhythm is the key to treatment of people with Parkinson’s, Music may be ideally suited to stimulating memory in peo-
which affects roughly one in 100 older than 60. Parkinson’s ple with dementia, helping them maintain a sense of self. Be-

intonation therapy produces long-term gains that

creation of alternative pathways in the brain.
arises from degeneration of cells in the midbrain that feed do-
pamine to the basal ganglia, an area involved in the initiation
and smoothness of movements. The dopamine shortage in the Music is
region results in motor problems ranging from tremors and
stiffness to difficulties in timing the movements associated
Social
with walking, facial expressions and speech. Musical activities
Music with a strong beat can allay some of these symptoms can be collective
by providing an audible rhythmic sequence that people can use experiences.
to initiate and time their movements. Treatments include
Social isolation
so-called rhythmic entrainment, which involves playing a
stimulus like a metronome. In neurologist Oliver Sacks’s 1973
is a common
book Awakenings, musical rhythm sometimes released in- consequence of
dividuals from their immobility, letting them dance or sing many neurological disorders, and social
out unexpectedly. support through music making helps in
The use of rhythm in motor therapy gained momentum in recovery, rehabilitation and coping.
the 1990s, when musician, music therapist and neuroscientist
Michael Thaut of Colorado State University and other re-

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 The sequence above
shows how, over
cause music activates neural areas and pathways in several ceive will vary, from receptive (listen-
time, melodic into-
parts of the brain, the odds are greater that memories associ- ing) to active (dancing, singing, clap- nation therapy built
ated with music will survive disease. Music also stimulates nor- ping). Music that the patient selects is up connections
mal emotional responses even in the face of general cognitive most effective because the choice rep- between the hearing
and speaking re-
decline. In a 2009 study psychologist Lise Gagnon of the Uni- resents a connection to memory and
gions in Laurel’s
versity of Sherbrooke in Quebec and her colleagues asked 12 self. The benefits vary, too, and tend healthy right brain.
individuals with Alzheimer’s and 12 without it to judge the to be short-term. But when the treat-
emotional connotations of various pieces of music. The Alz- ment does work, it reduces the feelings of agitation that lead
heimer’s participants were just as accurate as the others despite to wandering and vocal outbursts and encourages cooperation

The positive response to music opens the way to

engage in activities with other people, acquiring
significant impairments in different areas of judgment. Other re- and interaction with others. Music therapy can also help pa-
search suggests that taking part in musical activities throughout tients with dementia sleep better and can enhance their emo-
life keeps the mind young and may even decrease the risk of de- tional well-being.
veloping dementia [see “Everyone Can Gain from Making Mu- These emotional and social benefits are clear in the case of
sic,” on page 40]; the continuous engagement of the parts of the June, an 89-year-old woman from New Hampshire. June has
brain that integrate senses and motion with the systems for emo- severe, irreversible dementia and is cared for at home by her
tions and rewards might prevent loss of neurons and synapses. daughter (who described her mother’s circumstances to a clini-
The type of therapy that individual dementia patients re- cian in Thompson’s lab). Throughout the day, June is mainly
nonresponsive and sits with her head hanging low. She cannot
talk or walk, and she is incontinent. Yet when her daughter
sings to her, June comes alive. She bangs her hands on her legs,
Music is smiles widely and begins to laugh. June especially loves Christ-

Persuasive mas songs and may even blurt out a word or two. When listen-
ing to music, she can bang her leg in time with the beat.
Music can make
associated media Music on the Spectrum
Perhaps the most fascinating interplay between music and
such as lyrics and
C O U R T E SY O F G O T T F R I E D S C h l A U G

the brain lies in the case files of people with autism spectrum dis-
films seem more order, a neurodevelopmental syndrome that occurs in 1 to 2 per-
compelling. When cent of children, most of whom are boys. Hallmarks of autism
patients believe include impaired social interactions, repetitive behaviors and
in their treatment, their attitude tends difficulties in communication. Indeed, up to 30 percent of peo-
to remain positive. ple with autism cannot make the sounds of speech at all; many
have limited vocabulary of any kind, including gesture.
One of the peculiarities of the neurobiology of autism is
the overdevelopment of short-range brain connections. As an

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 ing drums while singing or speaking words and phrases. In a
proof-of-principle study, six completely nonverbal children
Music is took part in 40 sessions of this training over eight weeks. By the

Personal end, all were able to produce some speech sounds, and some
were even able to voice meaningful and appropriate words dur-
Neurological ing tasks that the therapy sessions had not covered. Most im-
portant, the children were still able to demonstrate their new
impairment can
skills eight weeks after the training sessions ended.
make people feel
that they have lost Quiet, Please
touch with them- Music-based treatments can also train the brain to tune out
selves. The personal the phantom strains of tinnitus — the experience of noise or
nature of music can evoke memories ringing in the ear in the absence of sound that affects roughly
20 percent of adults. Age-related hearing loss, exposure to loud
and help individuals maintain a sense
sounds and circulatory system disorders can all bring on the
of identity. condition, with symptoms ranging from buzzing or hissing in
the ears to a continuous tone with a defi nable pitch. The sen-

treatments that can help children with autism

social, language and motor skills as they do.
apparent consequence, children with autism tend to focus in- sation can cause serious distress and interfere with the ability
tensely on the fi ne details of sensory experience, such as the to concentrate on other sounds and activities. There is no cure.
varying textures of different fabrics or the precise sound qual- The past decade has seen a surge in understanding of the
ities emitted by appliances such as a refrigerator or an air con- neurological basis of the disorder. In one view, cochlear dam-
ditioner. And this fascination with sound may account for the age (most likely caused by exposure to loud sounds) reduces
many anecdotal reports of children with autism who thor- the transmission of particular sound frequencies to the brain.
oughly enjoy making and learning music. A disproportionate To compensate for the loss, neuronal activity in the central au-
number of children with autism spectrum disorder are musi-
cal savants, with extraordinary abilities in specialized areas,
such as absolute pitch.
The positive response to music opens the way to treatments FURThER READING
that can help children with autism engage in activities with oth- ■ From Singing to Speaking: Why Singing May Lead to Recovery
of Expressive Language Function in Patients with Broca’s
er people, acquiring social, language and motor skills as they
Aphasia. Gottfried Schlaug, Sarah Marchina and Andrea
do. Music also activates areas of the brain that relate to social Norton in Music Perception, Vol. 25, No. 4, pages 315–323;
ways of thinking. When we listen to music, we often get a sense April 1, 2008.
of the emotional states of the people who created it and those ■ Listening to Tailor-Made Notched Music Reduces Tinnitus Loudness
who are playing it. By encouraging children with autism to and Tinnitus-Related Auditory Cortex Activity. hidehiko Okamota
et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA,
imagine these emotions, therapists can help them learn to think
Vol. 107, No. 3, pages 1207–1210; January 19, 2010.
about other people and what they might be feeling. ■ Auditory-Motor Mapping Training as an Intervention to Facilitate
Recently the Music and Neuroimaging Laboratory at Beth Speech Output in Non-Verbal Children with Autism: A Proof of
Israel Deaconess and Harvard (which Schlaug directs) devel- Concept Study. Catherine Y. Wan et al. in PLOS ONE, Vol. 6, No. 9,
oped a new technique called auditory-motor mapping training, Article No. e25505; September 29, 2011.
■ Music, Health, and Wellbeing. Edited by Raymond MacDonald,
or AMMT, for children whose autism has left them unable to
Gunter Kreutz and laura Mitchell. Oxford University press, 2012.
speak. The treatments have two main components: intonation
■ Music, Thought, and Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of
of words and phrases (changing the melodic pitch of one’s Music. Second edition. William Forde Thompson. Oxford University
voice) and tapping alternately with each hand on pitch-produc- press, 2014.

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ditory system changes, creating neural “noise,” perhaps by inducing changes in the neural circuitry. For those with ton-
throwing off the balance between inhibition and excitation in al tinnitus, one treatment involves listening to “notched mu-
the auditory cortex, leading to the perception of sounds that sic,” generated by digitally removing the frequency band that
are not there. Also at play might be dysfunctional feedback to matches the tinnitus frequency. The notching—pioneered and
auditory brain regions from the limbic system, which is thought proved effective by neurophysiologist Christo Pantev and his
to serve as a noise-cancellation apparatus that identifies and group at the University of Münster in Germany— might help
inhibits irrelevant signals. reverse the imbalance in the auditory cortex, strenghtening
Music treatment seeks to counteract this dysfunction by the inhibition of the frequency band that might be the source

Everyone Can Gain from Making Music

The perks of learning to play an instrument last for decades By Julia Calderone

T
hink back to your elementary school music class. You
absorbed commands from a baton-wielding conduc-
tor while deciphering inky notes on a page. You kept
tempo with the rest of the band while your contorted
fingers sped from key to key. There is no doubt that musical
training is a challenge for the brain. And in the past decade an
abundance of studies have found that this effort confers cogni-
tive benefits on all who study music, from toddlers to retirees.
Researchers became interested in the effects of music on
the brain when a provocative study in the early 1990s claimed
that simply listening to a Mozart sonata could make you brain-
ier—so dubbed the “Mozart effect.” The finding was never con-
firmed. Various studies followed that showed listening to mu-
sic has transient effects on cognitive functions such as spatial
ability, speed of processing and creative problem solving— but
such effects last only about 10 minutes once the music is switched leave unanswered the important question of correlation: Are musi-
off. Experts continue to debate whether frequently engaging with cians better at certain tasks because of musical practice alone?
music has longer-term effects on cognition. In recent years new Or are they drawn to music because they have these skills already
techniques to measure the brain’s response to auditory cues in real or because they come from advantaged backgrounds?
time have given researchers valuable data to address the issue. Kraus and her colleagues have conducted a number of studies
“We can see how these ingredients of sound are processed by the to tackle this question. In one experiment published last Septem-
brain,” says Nina Kraus, an auditory neuroscientist at the North- ber, they gathered 44 children aged six to nine from disadvantaged
western University School of Communication. Today some evidence schools in Los Angeles and asked them to participate in musical in-
suggests that musical training may enhance a suite of cognitive struction for two hours a week. One group practiced for one year;
functions, including listening, linguistics, focus and memory, along the other practiced for two. After administering a battery of neuro-
with spatial, motor and mathematical skills. physiological tests that recorded their brain activity, Kraus’s team
found that those who participated in the music program for two
Better Reading through Music? years, independent of their age, were markedly better at processing
R EG I N E M A H A U X A l a my

Young children are ripe subjects for research in this field because speech syllables—such as differentiating be­­tween the sounds [ba]
their brains are primed to develop language skills, which music and [ga] —than those who had only one year of training.
seems to enhance. Many studies suggest that children who are As Kraus explains, a key element of literacy is the ability to dis-
musically trained have stronger cognitive abilities, including better cern meaningful differences between speech sounds—so study-
vocabulary, reading skills and sound perception. Yet these studies ing music, which shares characteristics with speech such as pitch,

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of the phantom sound in the first place. Another approach in- the evidence, and researchers have rightly pointed out that the
volves playing a series of pitches to patients and then asking new music-based treatments must prove their efficacy against
them to imitate the sequence vocally. As the patients refine the more established therapies. But of all the techniques for ad-
their accuracy, they learn to disregard irrelevant auditory sig- dressing neurological disorders, music-based therapies seem
nals and focus on what they want to hear. In time, the stim- unique in their capacity to tap into emotions, to help the brain
ulus of effortful attention might help the auditory cortex re- find lost memories, to let patients resume their place in the
turn to its normal physiological state. world. We are only now beginning to understand the science
For any novel therapy, enthusiasm can sometimes outpace behind the belief in the power of music to heal. M

timing and timbre, may help kids read better. The authors say the ample, child musicians appear to have better spatial reasoning
study provides the first direct evidence that a community music than their nonmusician peers, but adult musicians do not.
program for at-risk youth has a biological effect on the children’s
developing nervous systems. Other experts urge caution when in- Preventing Age-Related Decline
terpreting these results. “We already know that music training Many areas in which child and young adult musicians outperform
makes you a better listener,” says psychologist Glenn Schellen- their nonmusician peers —such as processing speed, memory
berg, who researches music’s effect on cognition at the University and attention — also happen to correlate with areas of cognitive
of Toronto Mississauga. Until researchers have behavioral evi- decline in old age. A small but growing body of evidence suggests
dence that kids who get music training become superior at reading that lifelong musical practice makes our brains healthier as we
or perceiving speech, he explains, the question of whether music age — especially in combating hearing loss, which affects an esti-
can influence language development remains open. mated two thirds of adults older than 70 in the U.S. A series of
studies by neuroscientist Alexandra Parbery-Clark of the Swedish
Empathetic Multitaskers Medical Center in Seattle and her colleagues found that musi-
As a musician grows up, other cognitive benefits appear, among cians aged 45 to 65 appear to lack four of the five hallmark de-
them a better ability to multitask, according to a 2014 study by psy- clines of speech processing in old age —they maintained consis-
chologist Melody Wiseheart and her colleagues at York University in tent and speedy brain responses to speech, for example, and the
Toronto. The team recruited 153 university students aged 18 to 31, ability to understand speech in noisy settings.
about half of whom were musicians with about 12 years of formal In addition, studies suggest that older adult musicians tend to
musical training; the others were nonmusicians. The students per- have stronger memory, more focused attention and faster brain
formed multitasking exercises, such as switching between identify- processing. Although such effects are most evident in adults who
ing how many numbers were on a screen and indicating which par- have practiced their instrument at least twice a week for 20 min-
ticular number was on the screen or tracking a moving white dot utes a session since childhood, researchers think that such ben-
with their mouse while monitoring a flashing set of letters. efits may also exist for less enthusiastic hobbyists. The act of
“We found that musicians were doing a lot better,” Wiseheart making music appears to be key because it requires the integra-
says; they were about 30 percent more accurate than the nonmu- tion of various senses, motor coordination and concentration in a
sicians when performing two tasks at once. She says that musi- way that even very attentive listening does not.
cianship ap­­pears to enhance working memory, which underlies What this means is that learning to play a musical instrument
the ability to multitask and can boost skills both in and out of the is very good for you. And when that practice begins early in life, its
classroom — when holding numbers in mind to compute an equa- positive effects can stretch into old age. “Biologically, our past
tion, for instance, or avoiding distractions while driving. shapes our present,” Kraus says. Both she and Wiseheart hope
Playing in a band or singing in a choir provides an­­other type of educators and policy makers will take note of this research and
benefit important for this age group. Studies show that making mu- keep music in classrooms. As Kraus says, “We want to improve hu-
sic in a group improves communication, coordination, cooperation man communication by harnessing the brain’s ability to change.”
and empathy among group members. Many of these advantages
of musicianship may be felt for decades, but some may not. For ex- Julia Calderone is a freelance science writer and former Mind intern.

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