We reveal ourselves through our musical preferences and our personalities are also shaped by them.
Vital turning points and formative relationships are played out to the soundtrack of our teens and young adulthood — never to be forgotten.
How to use music to give your brain a boost.
People walking on a treadmill reported feeling thy were exerting themselves less while listening to this music.
People in the study were only played up to one second snippets of 100 hundred different songs.
Music students end up one academic year ahead of their non-musical peers.
Music can have a magical effect on people who are not habitually active.
People in the study listened to and then played a Tibetan singing bowl.
People in the study listened to and then played a Tibetan singing bowl.
Playing a musical instrument can help protect against cognitive decline.
The reason is that learning to play changes the brain’s ‘wiring’, new research finds.
The neuroscientists found that the brain can compensate for disease or injuries.
Dr Bernhard Ross, study’s first author, said:
“Music has been known to have beneficial effects on the brain, but there has been limited understanding into what about music makes a difference.
This is the first study demonstrating that learning the fine movement needed to reproduce a sound on an instrument changes the brain’s perception of sound in a way that is not seen when listening to music.”
The research involved 32 young, healthy adults who listened to and then played a Tibetan singing bowl.
Brain scans showed that playing the singing bowl was enough to change brain activity.
Dr Ross said:
“It has been hypothesized that the act of playing music requires many brain systems to work together, such as the hearing, motor and perception systems.
This study was the first time we saw direct changes in the brain after one session, demonstrating that the action of creating music leads to a strong change in brain activity.”
The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience (Ross et al., 2017).
Even a year after taking part in the study, the way some older people’s brains processed language was more akin to young people.
Even a year after taking part in the study, the way some older people’s brains processed language was more akin to young people.
Only tasks which involve sustained mental effort can help protect the brain from ageing, a new study finds.
Activities like digital photography or quilting can provide the necessary mental stimulation.
Socialising, listening to music or playing simple games, though, did not have the same beneficial effects, researchers found.
Dr Denise C. Park, one of the study’s authors, said:
“The present findings provide some of the first experimental evidence that mentally-challenging leisure activities can actually change brain function and that it is possible that such interventions can restore levels of brain activity to a more youth-like state.
However, we would like to conduct much larger studies to determine the universality of this effect and understand who will benefit the most from such an intervention.”
The study involved assigning older adults to both high-challenge and low-challenge activities.
They continued these for around 15 hours a week over 14 weeks.
Only the activities that provided an active learning component were beneficial.
People who learned quilting or digital photography showed impressive improvements:
Some of these gains were maintained up to one year later.
The way these older people’s brains processed language was more akin to young people than their counterparts in the low-challenge group.
Dr Ian McDonough, who co-authored the study, said:
“The study clearly illustrates that the enhanced neural efficiency was a direct consequence of participation in a demanding learning environment.
The findings superficially confirm the familiar adage regarding cognitive aging of ‘Use it or lose it.'”
Dr Park added:
“Although there is much more to be learned, we are cautiously optimistic that age-related cognitive declines can be slowed or even partially restored if individuals are exposed to sustained, mentally challenging experiences.”
The study was published in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience (McDonough et al., 2015).
Tree brain image from Shutterstock
The effect of musical training on language skills and the brain’s response to sound.
The effect of musical training on language skills and the brain’s response to sound.
Musical training — even when started as late as high school — sharpens skills critical to academic success, new research finds.
Teenagers had sharper hearing and language skills after musical training, the psychologists concluded.
Benefits were seen after the adolescents took group music classes.
Professor Nina Kraus, who led the study, said:
“While music programs are often the first to be cut when the school budget is tight, these results highlight music’s place in the high school curriculum.
Although learning to play music does not teach skills that seem directly relevant to most careers, the results suggest that music may engender what educators refer to as ‘learning to learn.'”
The conclusions come from a study which followed 40 adolescents from before they entered high school until three years later.
Around half started band classes while the rest joined the junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC).
Those taking the band classes had three hours of group instruction per week in school.
Electrical activity in their brains was measured before and afterwards.
The musical group showed more rapid maturation in the brain’s response to sound.
They also had better language skills than those who had joined the ROTC.
The authors conclude:
“Our results support the notion that the adolescent brain remains receptive to training, underscoring the importance of enrichment during the teenage years.”
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Tierney et al., 2015).
Listening to music image from Shutterstock
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