What are the brain benefits of playing an instrument?
Rafael Román Caballero, a researcher at CIMCYC, has been awarded in the first edition of the Lilly-The Conversation Foundation Health and Medicine Dissemination Award with the article “What are the brain benefits of playing an instrument?”
In this article, he exposes how music has accompanied humanity since the beginning of history and how most people include music in their everyday lives, either by listening to the radio or with emerging streaming platforms such as Spotify. However, although everyone enjoys it, only one in ten Spaniards plays an instrument.
Rafael affirms that “learning to play an instrument is an intensive training that involves profound changes in the brain and mental capacities”. When comparing the brains of experienced musicians with people who have never played an instrument, many regions of the brains of musicians are larger and thicker. These adaptations occur in parts of the brain that play a role in musical abilities such as hearing.
Playing an instrument improves mental abilities such as memory or attention, in addition to enhancing children's academic performance and linguistic and mathematical skills. In addition, it reduces the risk of dementia or cognitive decline in old age.
Rafael also discussed whether music is the cause or rather the consequence of the benefits reported in musicians. Rafael Román asks himself the following question “what if the cognitive differences already existed before starting to play? What if coming from a more favorable environment is the real cause of the improvements? Studies that do not control which children choose music practice as an activity show a clear selection bias, with children with better cognitive test scores before starting the activity. However, studies that randomly assign children to music learning programs, versus other control activities, find cognitive and academic improvements when there are no initial differences between the groups. Therefore, there seems to be a greater tendency in some people to choose music as an activity, but once we get involved in it, it produces changes in our cognitive functioning. The improvements are especially great in children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or with less cognitive development.
Music is capable of transforming two of the most important things in human beings: the brain and the mind.
More information at: https://theconversation.com/cuales-son-los-beneficios-cerebrales-de-tocar-un-instrumento-163225
Research contact:
-Rafael Román Caballero, @email