Music Can Protect Your Brain

A recent study conducted by Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, a clinical neuropsychologist at Emory University School of Medicine’s Department of Neurology, offers additional evidence that musical instrumental training, when compared to other activities, may reduce the effects of memory decline and cognitive aging.

This is the second study published by Hanna-Pladdy, which confirms and refines findings from an original study published in Neuropsychology 2011 that revealed that musicians with at least 10 years of instrumental musical training remained cognitively sharp in advanced age. The findings were published by the of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

“The study confirms that musical activity preserves cognition as we age, by comparing variability in cognitive outcomes of older adults active in musical instrumental and other leisure activities,” says Hanna-Pladdy.

“A range of cognitive benefits, including memory, was sustained for musicians between the ages of 60-80 if they played for at least 10 years throughout their life, confirming that maintenance of advantages is not reliant on continued activity.

“In other words, you don’t use it or lose it. Nonetheless, the study highlighted the critical importance of the timing of musical activity, which may optimize cognitive benefits.”

The cognitive enhancements in older musicians included a range of verbal and nonverbal functions, as well as memory, which is the hallmark of Alzheimer’s pathology.  Sustained musical activity in advanced age predicted other non-verbal abilities involving visuospatial judgment, suggesting it is never too late to be musically active.

“This is an exciting finding in light of recent evidence suggesting that high educational levels are likely to yield cognitive reserve that may potentially delay the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms or cognitive decline,” says Hanna-Pladdy.