Abstract
Musical training has been associated with advantages in cognitive measures of IQ and verbal ability, as well as neural measures including white matter microstructural properties in the corpus callosum (CC) and the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF). We hypothesized that children who have musical training will have different microstructural properties in the SLF and CC. One hundred children aged 7.9–9.9 years (mean age 8.7) were surveyed for their musical activities, completed neuropsychological testing for general cognitive abilities, and underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) as part of a larger study. Children who play a musical instrument for more than 0.5 h per week (n = 34) had higher scores on verbal ability and intellectual ability (standardized scores from the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities), as well as higher axial diffusivity (AD) in the left SLF than those who did not play a musical instrument (n = 66). Furthermore, the intensity of musical practice, quantified as the number of hours of music practice per week, was correlated with axial diffusivity (AD) in the left SLF. Results are not explained by age, sex, socio-economic status, or physical fitness of the participants. The results suggest that the relationship between musical practice and intellectual ability is related to the maturation of white matter pathways in the auditory-motor system. The findings suggest that musical training may be a means of improving cognitive and brain health during development.
Highlights
The impact of music training on human brain and cognitive development has been a topic of intense interest in recent years (Kraus and Chandrasekaran, 2010)
Green voxels inside the ROIs are averaged across the ROI to obtain mean fractional anisotropy (FA), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) values across the ROI. (B) FA of the left and right superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) as a function of musical expertise. (C) AD of left and right SLF as a function of musical expertise
We further examined the relationship between the intensity of musical practice and FA, AD, and RD in the left and right SLF
Summary
The impact of music training on human brain and cognitive development has been a topic of intense interest in recent years (Kraus and Chandrasekaran, 2010). Children who take music lessons outperform their musically untrained counterparts in tests of verbal memory and reading ability (Hurwitz et al, 1975; Ho et al, 2003). Children who initially perform below the mean in academic achievement tests, after a year of musical training, catch up with their musically untrained counterparts in academic achievement (Gardiner et al, 1996). While these results suggest a relationship between music training and cognitive abilities, the direction of causality is unclear.
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