Music improves neuronal performance

Playing music for many years improves memory and hearing

13/05/2011

By playing a musical instrument for many years, the memory performance and the speech recognition capability increase in a noisy environment. Nina Kraus, a US researcher from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and colleagues, has come to this conclusion in a small study with non-musicians and musicians whose hearing and memory skills have been put to the test.

With increasing age, the hearing usually returns, whereby the affected people have problems following conversations, especially in noisy surroundings. You can not separate the language from the rest of the sounds, which, in the opinion of the US researchers, is not solely due to hearing loss, because respondents with similar hearing in their study performed very differently in speech recognition under noise exposure. The musicians were better in all examinations than the subjects who do not play any instrument, report the US researchers to study director Nina Kraus in the scientific journal „PLoS One“.

Improved memory and speech recognition through music
According to Northwestern University scientists, one seems „lifelong musical training (...) to confer benefits on at least two important abilities known to diminish with age“. „The memory and the ability to hear speech in noise“, was much better for musicians who played an instrument since the age of nine than for non-musicians, according to study director Nina Kraus. The study involved eighteen musicians and nineteen non-musicians between the ages of 45 and 65 as part of a series of tests designed to assess people's memory in the area of ​​hearing and sight and their ability to understand speech in high-noise environments. determined. Study leader Kraus explained that at the „musically trained“unique to non-musicians „ neuronal improvements“ to be observed.

Neuronal improvements through musical training
The „neural improvements“ according to the US researchers, however, according to the US researchers „Not just a gain or a kind of volume control effect ", but the memory performance associated with hearing is also increased. „Making music requires the ability to recognize relevant patterns separately, such as the sound of one's own instrument, harmonies and rhythms,“ explained study leader Kraus. Through the associated fine-tuning of the nervous system apparently also the speech recognition capability is positively influenced, said the US scientists. However, the areas of the brain involved in the processing of optical stimuli are not influenced by music making, according to the researchers. In the tests related to the visual working memory, the results of the musicians and non-musicians were similar, report Kraus and colleagues.

Music for medical treatment for damage to the brain?
Their study results suggest that years of music-making and related training can significantly reduce the age-related limitations of certain hearing-related skills, concludes Nina Kraus of Northwestern University's research team. The positive effects of music on neuronal performance have been studied in earlier studies, with Gottfried Schlaug, director of the „Music and Neuroimaging Laboratory“ At the beginning of 2010, Harvard Medical School presented a study that examined the effect of singing in the treatment of stroke patients. The relatively common after a stroke speech disorders are successfully treated by the vocal therapy, reported the US scientists. At the presentation of his study, Schlaug also referred to patients who could hardly speak a text but could sing it without any problems. According to the US researcher, the reason for the success of the therapy is that the music addresses both halves of the brain while the act of speaking is limited to the left hemisphere. Here lies the area of ​​the language center, which was not adequately supplied with blood in the affected stroke patients and was thus damaged. By making music now larger brain areas are addressed and also in the damaged language center new connections could be established, reported the US researchers. (Fp)

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Picture: Olga Meier-Sander