Can your musical training shield your brain from cognitive decline in old age? Study explores

Lifelong musical training can help shield the brain from age-related cognitive decline, states the study.

Art is the answer to age-related brain aging, states a new study. According to the research led by Claude Alain and Bernhard Ross (Baycrest Academy for Research and Education); Yi Du and Lei Zhang (Chinese Academy of Sciences), years of musical training can help older adults fight age-related cognitive aging.

Here's how your musical training can protect you from cognitive decline. (Unsplash)

For older adults, it becomes increasingly difficult to follow conversations in setups where there is background music. While it happens due to cognitive decline, the study observed that lifelong musical training can give a protective shield against it.

The authors observed that older musician’s brains demonstrated youthful patterns of neural connectivity, making it easier for them to follow conversations even in noisy setups.

Findings of the study:

For the study, the researchers selected 74 people: 25 older musicians, 25 older non-musicians, and 24 young non-musicians. The older musicians were serious about their craft, started training before the age of 23, practised for 32 years, and still continued to play at least 13 hours in a week.

The study observed how musical training can improve brain health.

For older non-musicians, their brains became more active as they paid more attention to understanding speech through noise. For musicians, their brain activity was more youthlike as they demonstrated lesser struggle to make out the syllables through noise. However, when the musicians put in more effort, their performances got worse, suggesting that extra effort was counterproductive.

How is musical training related to brain activity?

In the paper, the researchers explained, “Our findings show that cognitive reserve accrued through long-term music training holds back age-related neural recruitment during speech-in-noise perception and enlighten the intricate interplay between cognitive reserve and age-related upregulated activity during cognitive tasks. Cognitive reserve accrued from positive life choices like long-term musical training can provide additional neural resources to help cope with the effect of aging.”

Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.