Abstract
Inhibitory control, the ability to suppress an immediate dominant response, has been shown to predict academic and career success, socioemotional wellbeing, wealth, and physical health. Learning to play a musical instrument engages various sensorimotor processes and draws on cognitive capacities including inhibition and task switching. While music training has been shown to benefit cognitive and language skills, its impact on inhibitory control remains inconclusive. As part of an ongoing 5-year longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of music training on the development of inhibitory control and its neural underpinnings with a population of children (starting at age 6) from underserved communities. Children involved in music were compared with children involved in sports and children not involved in any systematic after-school program. Inhibition was measured using a delayed gratification, flanker, and Color-Word Stroop task, which was performed both inside and outside of an MRI scanner. We established that there were no pre-existing differences in cognitive capacities among the groups at the onset. In the delayed gratification task, beginning after 3 years of training, children with music training chose a larger, delayed reward in place of a smaller, immediate reward compared to the control group. In the flanker task, children in the music group, significantly improved their accuracy after 3 and 4 years of training, whereas such improvement in the sport and control group did not reach significance. There were no differences among the groups on behavioral measures of Color-Word Stroop task at any time point. As for differences in brain function, we have previously reported that after 2 years, children with music training showed significantly greater bilateral activation in the pre-SMA/SMA, ACC, IFG, and insula during the Color-Word Stroop task compared to the control group, but not compared to the sports group (Sachs et al., 2017). However, after 4 years, we report here that differences in brain activity related to the Color-Word Stroop task between musicians and the other groups is only observed in the right IFG. The results suggest that systematic extracurricular programs, particularly music-based training, may accelerate development of inhibitory control and related brain networks earlier in childhood.
Highlights
Executive functions are broadly defined as top–down processes related to goal acquisition and attention that primarily recruit the brain’s prefrontal network (Miller and Cohen, 2001)
By conducting this investigation longitudinally, and implementing a pre-training baseline assessment, we attempt to differentiate effects of training from pre-existing biological contributions. This is the first longitudinal study using neuroimaging to assess inhibitory control in children involved in music training
We hypothesize: (a) that children involved in music training will show greater improvements on behavioral measurements of inhibition than will children involved in no systematic training and children involved in sports training, evidenced by reduced reaction time and improved accuracy; (b) that, during an fMRI inhibition task, children involved in music training as compared to children with no systematic training will show greater activation of brain regions associated with inhibitory control, including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), SMA/pre-SMA, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and insula, continuing the pattern reported after 2 years of training (Sachs et al, 2017)
Summary
Executive functions are broadly defined as top–down processes related to goal acquisition and attention that primarily recruit the brain’s prefrontal network (Miller and Cohen, 2001). In Schellenberg (2011) study, child musicians were described as having at least 2 years of music lessons outside of school; whereas, children in Zuk et al (2014) study had been playing for an average of 5 years, while Degé and Schwarzer (2011) defined music training as a continuous variable These differences are of particular importance due to the rapid development of inhibitory control during early to middle childhood, in which one or 2 years of regular participation in a music program could provide significant improvements in skill performance. We hypothesize: (a) that children involved in music training will show greater improvements on behavioral measurements of inhibition than will children involved in no systematic training and children involved in sports training, evidenced by reduced reaction time and improved accuracy; (b) that, during an fMRI inhibition task, children involved in music training as compared to children with no systematic training will show greater activation of brain regions associated with inhibitory control, including the IFG, SMA/pre-SMA, ACC, and insula, continuing the pattern reported after 2 years of training (Sachs et al, 2017)
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