Art and science: how musical training shapes the brain

Abstract

What makes a musician? In this review, we discuss innate and experience-dependent factors that mold the musician brain in addition to presenting new data in children that indicate that some neural enhancements in musicians unfold with continued training over development. We begin by addressing effects of training on musical expertise, presenting neural, perceptual, and cognitive evidence to support the claim that musicians are shaped by their musical training regimes. For example, many musician-advantages in the neural encoding of sound, auditory perception, and auditory-cognitive skills correlate with their extent of musical training, are not observed in young children just initiating musical training, and differ based on the type of training pursued. Even amidst innate characteristics that contribute to the biological building blocks that make up the musician, musicians demonstrate further training-related enhancements through extensive education and practice. We conclude by reviewing evidence from neurobiological and epigenetic approaches to frame biological markers of musicianship in the context of interactions between genetic and experience-related factors.

Effects of bilingualism on white matter integrity in older adults

“…The anterior aspect of the corpus callosum and the superior longitudinal fasciculi are both sensitive to the progression of AD (Bartzokis et al, 2004; Rose et al, 2000; Bozzali et al, 2002). These white matter regions are also consistently remodeled by second-language experience in young adults.…”

“…As with bilinguals, musicians also appear to have larger corpus callosum volumes, an effect that is sensitive to the age at which the musician first acquired the skill (Schlaug et al, 1995; Wan & Schlaug, 2010). Echoing the arguments from the bilingual literature, the strengthening of the corpus callosum in musicians is also thought to reflect greater inter-hemispheric communication (e.g., Kraus et al, 2013). …”

Audio-visuomotor processing in the Musician's brain: an ERP study on professional violinists and clarinetists

“…First, i) this design provides the opportunity to compare the skilled vs. unskilled audiomotor mechanisms within a musician's brain, as there are many known differences between musicians' and non-musicians' brains at both the cortical and subcortical level20. It is well known, for example, that musical training since infancy results in changes in brain connectivity, volume, and functioning21, in particular in motor performance (basal ganglia, cerebellum, motor and premotor cortices), visuomotor transformation (the superior parietal cortex)2223, inter-hemispheric callosal exchanges24, auditory analysis2526 and the notation reading (Visual Word Form Area, VWFA)27 are concerned (see Kraus & Chandrasekaran28 for a review).…”

Music and Its Familiarity Affection on Audience Decision Making

“…When it comes to musical familiarity, the repeated stimuli of music can generate positive affect (Garcia-Marques, Mackie, Claypool, & Garcia-Marques, 2004) which can support people engagement through melody. In fact, musical familiarity will have the highest level of hedonic value on an individual's emotion (Barrett, Ashley, Strait, & Kraus, 2013).…”