Music on the brain
A neurological study of classical musicians trained in different styles
July 20, 2020
Science Daily/University of Tokyo
A new study looks at differences between the brains of Japanese classical musicians, Western classical musicians and nonmusicians. Researchers investigated specific kinds of neural behavior in participants as they were exposed to unfamiliar rhythms and nonrhythmic patterns. Trained musicians showed greater powers of rhythmic prediction compared to nonmusicians, with more subtle differences between those trained in Japanese or Western classical music. This research has implications for studies of cultural impact on learning and brain development.
"Music is ubiquitous and indispensable in our daily lives. Music can reward us, comfort us and satisfy us emotionally," said Project Assistant Professor Tatsuya Daikoku from the International Research Center for Neurointelligence at the University of Tokyo. "So it's no surprise the effect of music on the brain is well-researched. However, many studies focus on Western classical music, pop, jazz, etc., whereas ours is the first study that investigates neural mechanisms in practitioners of Japanese classical music, known as gagaku."
Many Japanese performance arts, such as in Noh or Kabuki theater, include music that does not necessarily follow a regular beat pattern as Western classical music typically does. That is, Japanese classical music sometimes expands or contracts beats without mathematical regularity. This time interval is often referred to as ma, which is an important notion throughout Japanese culture.
Daikoku and his research partner, Assistant Professor Masato Yumoto from the Graduate School of Medicine, explored how different groups of trained musicians and nonmusicians responded to different rhythm patterns. The idea was to see how musical training might influence statistical learning, the way our brains interpret and anticipate sequential information: in this case, rhythms.
The researchers recorded participants' brain activity directly using a technique called magnetoencephalography, which looks at magnetic signals in the brain. From the data, Daikoku and Yumoto were able to ascertain that statistical learning of the rhythms took place in the left hemisphere of participants' brains. And importantly, there was a greater level of activity in those with musical training, be it in Japanese or Western classical music.
"We expected that musicians would exhibit strong statistical learning of unfamiliar rhythm sequences compared to nonmusicians. This has been observed in previous studies which looked at responses to unfamiliar melodies. So this in itself was not such a surprise," said Daikoku. "What is really interesting, however, is that we were able to pick out differences in the neural responses between those trained in Japanese or Western classical music."
These differences between Japanese and Western classical musicians are far more subtle and become apparent in the higher-order neural processing of complexity in rhythm. Though it is not the case that one culture or another performed better or worse than the other, this finding does imply that different cultural upbringings and systems of education can have a tangible effect on brain development.
"This research forms part of a larger puzzle we wish to explore -- that of differences and similarities between the languages and music of cultures and how they affect learning and development," said Daikoku. "We also look into music as a way to treat developmental disorders such as language impairment. Personally, I hope to see a rejuvenation of interest in Japanese classical music; perhaps this study will inspire those unfamiliar with such music to hear and cherish this key part of Japanese cultural history."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200720093255.htm
Exercise is good for the aging brain
Researchers find a single bout of exercise boosts cognition, memory performance in some older people
August 26, 2019
Science Daily/University of Iowa
Researchers have found that a single bout of exercise benefits some older people's brains. In experiments in which participants aged 60 to 80 exercised once and multiple times, the researchers found some individuals showed improved cognitive functions and working memory.
Exercise seems to endow a wealth of benefits, from the release of happiness-inducing hormones to higher physical fitness. New research shows it may provide a boost to the mind too.
University of Iowa researchers have found that a single bout of exercise improves cognitive functions and working memory in some older people. In experiments that included physical activity, brain scans, and working memory tests, the researchers also found that participants experienced the same cognitive benefits and improved memory from a single exercise session as they did from longer, regular exercise.
"One implication of this study is you could think of the benefits day by day," says Michelle Voss, assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the study's corresponding author. "In terms of behavioral change and cognitive benefits from physical activity, you can say, 'I'm just going to be active today. I'll get a benefit.' So, you don't need to think of it like you're going to train for a marathon to get some sort of optimal peak of performance. You just could work at it day by day to gain those benefits."
Previous research has shown exercise can confer a mental boost. But the benefits vary: One person may improve cognitively and have improved memory, while another person may show little to no gain.
Limited research has been done on how a single bout of physical activity may affect cognition and working memory specifically in older populations, despite evidence that some brain functions slip as people age.
Voss wanted to tease out how a single session of exercise may affect older individuals. Her team enrolled 34 adults between 60 and 80 years of age who were healthy but not regularly active. Each participant rode a stationary bike on two separate occasions -- with light and then more strenuous resistance when pedaling -- for 20 minutes. Before and after each exercise session, each participant underwent a brain scan and completed a memory test.
In the brain scan, the researchers examined bursts of activity in regions known to be involved in the collection and sharing of memories. In the working memory tests, each participant used a computer screen to look at a set of eight young adult faces that rotated every three seconds -- flashcard style -- and had to decide when a face seen two "cards" previously matched the one they were currently viewing.
After a single exercise session, the researchers found in some individuals increased connectivity between the medial temporal (which surrounds the brain's memory center, the hippocampus) and the parietal cortex and prefrontal cortex, two regions involved in cognition and memory. Those same individuals also performed better on the memory tests. Other individuals showed little to no gain.
The boost in cognition and memory from a single exercise session lasted only a short while for those who showed gains, the researchers found.
"The benefits can be there a lot more quickly than people think," Voss says. "The hope is that a lot of people will then keep it up because those benefits to the brain are temporary. Understanding exactly how long the benefits last after a single session, and why some benefit more than others, are exciting directions for future research."
The participants also engaged in regular exercise, pedaling on a stationary bike for 50 minutes three times a week for three months. One group engaged in moderate-intensity pedaling, while another group had a mostly lighter workout in which the bike pedals moved for them.
Most individuals in the moderate and lighter-intensity groups showed mental benefits, judging by the brain scans and working memory tests given at the beginning and at the end of the three-month exercise period. But the brain gains were no greater than the improvements from when they had exercised a single time.
"The result that a single session of aerobic exercise mimics the effects of 12 weeks of training on performance has important implications both practically and theoretically," the authors write.
The researchers note their study had a small participant pool, with a homogenous population that excluded anyone with chronic health conditions or who were taking beta-blockers.
To address those limitations, Voss has expanded her participant pool in a current, five-year study to confirm the initial findings and learn more about how exercise alters older people's brains. The participants are healthy older individuals who are not physically active, similar to the participants' profile in the study's results reported here.
The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, funded the research.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190826110409.htm
Trained musicians perform better -- at paying attention
Musical training improves the ability to tune out distractions, and the more training, the better the control, study finds
March 26, 2019
Science Daily/Elsevier
Musical training produces lasting improvements to a cognitive mechanism that helps individuals be more attentive and less likely to be distracted by irrelevant stimuli while performing demanding tasks. According to a new study appearing in the journal Heliyon, published by Elsevier, trained musicians demonstrate greater executive control of attention (a main component of the attentional system) than non-musicians. Notably, the more years of training musicians have, the more efficient they are at controlling their attention.
"Our study investigated the effects of systematic musical training on the main components of the attentional system. Our findings demonstrate greater inhibitory attentional control abilities in musicians than non-musicians. Professional musicians are able to more quickly and accurately respond to and focus on what is important to perform a task, and more effectively filter out incongruent and irrelevant stimuli than non-musicians. In addition, the advantages are enhanced with increased years of training," explained lead investigator, Paulo Barraza, PhD, Center for Advanced Research in Education, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
The attentional system consists of three subsystems that are mediated by anatomically distinct neural networks: alerting, orienting, and executive control networks. The alerting function is associated with maintaining states of readiness for action. The orienting function is linked to the selection of sensory information and change of attentional focus. The executive control function is involved both in the suppression of irrelevant, distracting stimuli and in top-down attentional control. The study's findings also demonstrated a correlation between the alerting and orienting networks in musicians than in non-musicians, possibly reflecting a functional relationship between these attentional networks derived from the deliberate practice of music.
The investigators recorded the behavioral responses of 18 professional pianists and a matched group of 18 non-musician professional adults who engaged in an attentional networks test. The musician group consisted of full-time conservatory students or conservatory graduates from Conservatories of the Universidad de Chile, Universidad Mayor de Chile, and Universidad Austral de Chile, with an average of more than 12 years of practice. "Non-musicians" were university students or graduates who had not had formal music lessons and could not play or read music.
The participants viewed and provided immediate feedback on rapidly presented image variations to test the efficiency of their reactive behavior. Mean scores of the alerting, orienting, and executive networks for the group of musicians were 43.84 milliseconds (ms), 43.70 ms, and 53.83 ms; for the group of non-musicians mean scores were 41.98 ms, 51.56 ms, and 87.19 ms, respectively. The higher scores show less efficient inhibitory attentional control.
Prior research has shown that systematic musical training results in changes to the brain that correlate with the enhancement of some specific musical abilities. However, musical training not only enhances the musical auditory perception, but also seems to have an impact on the processing of extra-musical cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory). According to the investigators, this is the first study to test the effect of musical training on attentional networks, which adds to previous research about the potential effect of musical practice on the development of extra-musical cognitive skills.
"Our findings of the relationship between musical training and improvement of attentional skills could be useful in clinical or educational fields, for instance, in strengthening the ability of ADHD individuals to manage distractions or the development of school programs encouraging the development of cognitive abilities through the deliberate practice of music. Future longitudinal research should directly address these interpretations," noted co-investigator David Medina, BMEd, Department of Music, Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences, Santiago, Chile.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190326105604.htm