Abstract
This review focuses on reports that link music training to working memory and neural oscillations. Music training is increasingly associated with improvement in working memory, which is strongly related to both localized and distributed patterns of neural oscillations. Importantly, there is a small but growing number of reports of relationships between music training, working memory, and neural oscillations in adults. Taken together, these studies make important contributions to our understanding of the neural mechanisms that support effects of music training on behavioral measures of executive functions. In addition, they reveal gaps in our knowledge that hold promise for further investigation. The current review is divided into the main sections that follow: (1) discussion of behavioral measures of working memory, and effects of music training on working memory in adults; (2) relationships between music training and neural oscillations during temporal stages of working memory; (3) relationships between music training and working memory in children; (4) relationships between music training and working memory in older adults; and (5) effects of entrainment of neural oscillations on cognitive processing. We conclude that the study of neural oscillations is proving useful in elucidating the neural mechanisms of relationships between music training and the temporal stages of working memory. Moreover, a lifespan approach to these studies will likely reveal strategies to improve and maintain executive function during development and aging.
Highlights
Music training engages some of our most complex cognitive abilities (Peretz and Zatorre, 2005; Zatorre and McGill, 2005) and induces brain plasticity in widely distributed cortical regions (Altenmüller and Schlaug, 2015)
While there is abundant research related to Event-related potential (ERP) and working memory (Drew et al, 2006; Yurgil and Golob, 2013; Pinal et al, 2015; Getzmann et al, 2018), the current review focuses on spectral methods as a complementary approach to extracting ongoing oscillatory features that correspond to cognitive operations, such as the encoding or short-term storage of information
It is not surprising that music training is related to enhancements in executive functions, including working memory
Summary
Music training engages some of our most complex cognitive abilities (Peretz and Zatorre, 2005; Zatorre and McGill, 2005) and induces brain plasticity in widely distributed cortical regions (Altenmüller and Schlaug, 2015). Musicianship requires selective and flexible attention, as well as inhibition of irrelevant auditory and visual stimuli. Musicians must readily manipulate stored information in accordance with complex hierarchies of rules and conventions. Reading musical notation requires strong spatial associations with percepts and symbols, and performing music requires effortful self-regulation and emotional expression. Music training is emerging as an important model system for studying experience-dependent brain plasticity, and for the development of therapeutic interventions for healthy brain development and aging. Reports over the last few decades have firmly established that music training is associated with improvements on measures of executive functions, such as inhibitory
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