New research from Northwestern University@@http://www.northwestern.edu/@@ is the first to find that a lifetime of musical training can offset the aging process.
In the study (PDF), which was published in the online journal “Neurobiology of Aging,”@@http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/525480/description#description@@ researchers measured the brains of 87 adults from age 18 to 65@@on PDF@@. Forty-six participants were musicians who began musical training before age nine and engaged in musical activities at least three times a week. The scientists compared the brain’s reaction to sound (called neural timing) in the younger and older musicians and nonmusicians. They found that older musicians had quicker neural timing than both younger musicians and non-musicians.
“We were really excited by the results,” said Alexandra Parbery-Clark, the study’s leading author@@on PDF@@. “It shows that musical activity does something really positive.”
Parbery-Clark explained that neural timing usually slows with old age, which can create problems with cognitive skills and memory.
“With musicians, we found that even when they were 60 years old, they had a neural timing system of an 18-year-old,” she said.
The research team at the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University is made up of mostly musicians, said Parbery-Clark, who is also concert pianist. In 2009, they began researching how musical training affects the nervous system in old age, which is a new field with many opportunities for discoveries.
Nina Kraus@@on PDF@@, a co-author of the study and principal investigator at the lab, said her team will continue to look at the biological impacts of musical training during a lifetime. The scientists are looking at whether five or 10 years of musical training could produce similar results. They are also looking at what age is best to begin learning an instrument, what effects reading music has on the nervous system and how musical training may offset hearing loss.
“This research opens up a lot of questions that we need to study,” Parbery-Clark said.