Music can help to prevent cognitive decline

Normal aging is associated with progressive cognitive decline — but can we train our brain to delay this process?

A team led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has now discovered that practising and listening to music can alter cognitive decline in healthy seniors by stimulating the production of grey matter. Their results, published in NeuroImage: Reports, open new prospects for the support of healthy aging.

Throughout our lives, our brain remodels itself. Brain morphology and connections change according to the environment and the experiences, for instance when we learn new skills or overcome the consequences of a stroke. However, as we age, this ‘brain plasticity’ decreases. The brain also loses grey matter, where our precious neurons are located. This is known as ‘brain atrophy’.

Gradually, a cognitive decline appears. Working memory, at the core of many cognitive processes, is one of the cognitive functions suffering the most. Working memory is defined as the process in which we briefly retain and manipulate information in order to achieve a goal, such as remembering a telephone number long enough to write it down or translating a sentence from a foreign language.

The good news is that the new study suggests that music practice and active listening could prevent working memory decline. The research was conducted among 132 healthy retirees, from 62 to 78 years of age, who were enrolled in piano and music awareness training for six months. One of the conditions for participation was that they had not taken any music lessons for more than six months in their lives.

“We wanted people whose brains did not yet show any traces of plasticity linked to musical learning,” said first author Damien Marie. “Indeed, even a brief learning experience in the course of one’s life can leave imprints on the brain, which would have biased our results.”

The participants were randomly assigned to two groups, regardless of their motivation to play an instrument. The second group had active listening lessons, which focused on instrument recognition and analysis of musical properties in a wide range of musical styles. The classes lasted one hour. Participants in both groups were required to do homework for half an hour a day.

“After six months, we found common effects for both interventions,” said last author Clara James. “Neuroimaging revealed an increase in grey matter in four brain regions involved in high-level cognitive functioning in all participants, including cerebellum areas involved in working memory. Their performance increased by 6% and this result was directly correlated to the plasticity of the cerebellum.”

Side view of a brain. Highlighted in blue are the areas affected by the increase in grey matter as a result of music practice. Image ©UNIGE – Damien Marie.

The scientists also found that the quality of sleep, the number of lessons followed over the course of the intervention and the daily training quantity had a positive impact on the degree of improvement in performance.

However, the researchers also found a difference between the two groups. In the pianists, the volume of grey matter remained stable in the right primary auditory cortex — a key region for sound processing, whereas it decreased in the active listening group.

“In addition, a global brain pattern of atrophy was present in all participants,” Marie said. “Therefore, we cannot conclude that musical interventions rejuvenate the brain. They only prevent aging in specific regions.”

The results show that practising and listening to music promotes brain plasticity and cognitive reserve; the study authors thus believe that these playful and accessible interventions should become a major policy priority for healthy aging. The next step for the team is to evaluate the potential of these interventions in people with mild cognitive impairment, an intermediate stage between normal aging and dementia.

Top image credit: iStock.com/RapidEye