The idea that \u201cmusic makes you smarter\u201d has a long history in science, said study leader Northeastern music professor and director of the MIND (Music, Imaging, and Neural Dynamics) lab Psyche Loui<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat culminated in findings that people called the Mozart effect,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n A slew of baby Mozart CDs that promised to cultivate geniuses and prenatal tapes that offered a head start right in the womb followed in the decades after.<\/p>\n Research did suggest that all those hours of piano practice don\u2019t go to waste, even if you don\u2019t end up being the next Liberace. Some past studies linked musical training to stronger cognitive skills, while others connected it to differences in the brain<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Loui\u2019s team wanted to see how all the pieces fit together in the same children.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were trying to address how music training shapes the brain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The team turned to existing data from 76 children \u2014 38 of whom practiced an instrument for at least 30 minutes a week, while the other 38 did not. Most played piano or a string instrument.<\/p>\n The children first completed three sets of tests. The first measured general intelligence, language skills, spatial reasoning, and visual and auditory learning. The second tested working memory. The third covered reading, spelling and math.<\/p>\n Northeastern Global News, Sign up for NGN\u2019s daily newsletter for news, discovery and analysis from around the world.<\/p>\n On the whole, the musical bunch knocked it out of the park on a broad range of measures, achieving much higher test scores all around, the researchers found.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing these benefits even at such an early stage,\u201d said Kelsie Lopez, a Northeastern psychology postdoc and co-first author of the study. \u201cIt\u2019s not like you need to have 20 years of experience.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really quite striking,\u201d Loui added.<\/p>\n The study can\u2019t prove that the music lessons caused the differences. To do that, the researchers would need to assign children to music training at random and compare the results. But it does raise questions. What\u2019s going on behind the scenes in the brain? Could differences in its structure help explain the higher test scores?<\/p>\n To get a closer look, the researchers turned to existing brain scans from 50 of the children. The scans used a method known as diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI. It tracks how water moves through various types of brain tissue and maps the organization of white matter \u2014 bundles of long nerve fibers that carry signals between various parts of the brain. The fatty coating called myelin wrapped around the strands gives white matter its color and helps signals travel more quickly, kind of like insulation around an electrical wire.<\/p>\n Because water flows more easily along the fibers than across them, its movement reveals the direction and organization of white-matter pathways.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a way to look at the flow of water through the brain,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n The team focused on the arcuate fasciculus, a bundle of white-matter fibers connecting regions involved in listening with those that help produce speech and movement.<\/p>\n Damage to the pathway can cause language problems, including difficulty repeating spoken sentences, Loui said.<\/p>\n When the research team analyzed the scans, they found a possible difference in the right arcuate fasciculus. Among the musical group, water diffusion followed a more linear, tube-like pattern rather than a flatter, pancake-like one.<\/p>\n Lopez described the finding as consistent with a stronger connection between the brain regions that process sound and those that coordinate speaking and muscle movements.<\/p>\n However, it remains to be seen if the difference can explain the higher test scores.<\/p>\n Whatever future studies reveal, playing an instrument is quite the mental juggling act.<\/p>\n \u201cLearning music repeatedly exercises attention, working memory, planning, self-management, listening and adapting,\u201d Anita Collins, founder of the musical education and advocacy organization Bigger Better Brains<\/a>, told Northeastern Global News.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are skills children use across their whole school day, not just when they are learning music,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Many of those abilities are known as executive functions \u2014 the mental skills used by the brain for focusing, remembering instructions, planning and shifting between tasks.<\/p>\n The intricate finger acrobatics involved in playing a run of spiccato strokes with a violin bow or rippling across a piano keyboard with both hands provide an excellent training ground for honing attention, task switching and similar skills.<\/p>\n \u201cI think music training really helps executive function because of the demands that it places on your brain,\u201d Loui said.<\/p>\n Researchers also agree that music brings people together and creates social motivation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Northeastern University professor Psyche Loui studies the cognitive benefits of music and its connection to the brain. Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n