(((( a mind for music )))) Music of the Hemispheres

won’t make you smarter, a growing body of evidence suggests that playing his music will. Musical training doesn’t Music of the just make you a better musician — the acquired skills seem to transfer to other areas, various studies have found. And research focused on the brain’s particu- hemispheres lar relationship with music and language suggests that engaging the mind with Playing instruments gives brains a boost musical training could remedy language By Rachel Ehrenberg s Photograph by Cary Wolinsky impairments such as dyslexia. “There really is now so much evidence ot so long ago, Mozart mania music and smarts. In the original study, showing that musical experience has a swept the nation. A small the “” was minor and lasted pervasive effect on how the nervous sys- study found that students only minutes. Follow-up studies found tem gets molded and shaped throughout who listened to 10 minutes of the effect specific neither to the com- our lifetimes,” says Nina Kraus, head of Na Mozart sonata performed better on poser nor to music. Students listening to the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory a paper-folding task than their peers, Mozart were just more stimulated than at Northwestern University in Evanston, and suddenly a flourishing industry those listening to a relaxation tape or Ill. “This kind of transformation comes sprouted. Mozart’s music sang from CDs silence. And while arousal can improve about only with active engagement with and videos marketed for children, babies learning, research suggests, the effects sound. My daddy always said, ‘You never and moms-to-be. The craze reached can be fleeting and aren’t limited to get something for nothing.’ You’re not a crescendo when Georgia’s governor music. Assessments of the original report going to get big biceps by watching wres- Zell Miller included $105,000 in his now tend to be dirges: In the May-June tlers — you’ve got to do it.” state budget to send every child born in issue of Intelligence, researchers from the In the long run, musical training a Georgia hospital home with a classical University of Vienna published a paper appears to improve a suite of verbal and music tape or CD. titled “Mozart effect–Shmozart effect.” nonverbal skills. Playing an instrument “No one questions that listening to “It’s a short-lived effect and it spawned may add finesse to how people move their music at a very early age affects the spa- a huge industry of baby Einstein, baby bodies. Making music makes you hear tial, temporal reasoning that underlies Mozart CDs, all sorts of stuff,” says better, fine-tuning the ability to extract math and engineering and even chess,” Aniruddh Patel of the Neurosciences a signal from noise. Musical training also Miller said. Institute in San Diego. “But the science may improve grammar skills, the ability Actually, a lot of researchers ques- behind it is pretty thin.” to grasp meaning from words and to dis- tioned the link between listening to Yet even though listening to Mozart tinguish a question from a command.

Until recently, establishing cause and Music experiment Language experiment effect for music’s mental impact has been difficult. But long-term studies peering into brain structure and activity are now showing that musical training changes the brain in lasting ways.

The brain on beats Playing an instrument calls upon cir- Musically trained Not musically trained Musically trained Not musically trained cuitry from many areas of the brain, says Say what? When children with musical training hear a sequence that ends with a “hanging” , director of the music per- chord, their brains respond more strongly than do other children (shown at left, darker is more ception, cognition and expertise labora- intense). These kids also show stronger responses to violations in sentence syntax (shown at right). tory at McGill University in Montreal. For a long time, music was consid- The breadth of the musician’s task and mance demonstrated by musicians on ered a creative “right brain” endeavor. the required cognitive effort are probably some tasks is more about nurture than That idea has now gone the way of the behind much of the enhancement of other nature. Teasing out that balance has onservatory

C Macarena. Music processing is distrib- skills, says neuroscientist Laurel Trainor, been a recent focus of Gottfried Schlaug’s uted throughout the brain, says Levitin, director of the auditory development lab music and neuroimaging research at the hore hore S and playing an instrument, in particular, at McMaster University in Hamilton, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center outh outh S is an ensemble activity. It involves pay- Canada. Playing an instrument “engages and Harvard Medical School. ing attention, thinking ahead, remem- basically most of your brain,” Trainor A study by Schlaug’s team found that bering, coordinating movement and says. The activity appears to boost exec- after 15 months of weekly keyboard les- hanks to the the to hanks T interpreting constant feedback to the utive function, being the boss of your sons, 6-year-olds showed greater change ears, fingers and, in some cases, lips. body and mind. Evidence suggests that in their brains than kids who attended a photo: photo: “It’s one of the most complicated tasks with musical training comes improved weekly music class without instrument that we have,” Levitin says. “Take a sym- memory, finer motor skills and better training. Among the most changed were phony orchestra. What you have is 80 or attention control — the ability to ignore a part of the auditory cortex and brain

NeuroImage 2009; 2009; NeuroImage 100 of the most highly trained members one thing and pay attention to something regions involved in control of move- of our society — more highly trained than else. “Our working hypothesis is that it’s ments. Kids with training also did better oelsch/ K

. . astronauts or surgeons in terms of the these control processes that are what is on tests related to finger movement and S numbers of hours and years of prepara- key for the transfer effects,” Trainor says. discerning melodies and rhythm, Schlaug tion — and they are performing the works Some musicians are certainly musi- and colleagues reported last year in the of some of the greatest minds that ever cally inclined to begin with. But recent Journal of Neuroscience. . Jentschke and and Jentschke .

S lived. It’s really extraordinary.” work suggests that the superior perfor- For most people, the transfer effects

Though the “Mozart effect” appears to be hype, studies do show that musical training can improve language and auditory skills.

31 32 guage are also important for music.lan While processing for instrumental brain the of areas that suggested others and Berlin Universität Freie the of Koelsch Stefan Patel, by studies imaging when language in one embrace began to mount Evidencethat the brain holds music and Peas in a syntactic pod impairments,” Trainorsays. language and dyslexia with people for that musical training does have benefits ties. “There is quite a bit of evidence now difficul- language with people for chord rich particularly a strike may training ple on the planet,” she says. But musical musicians to be the most intelligent peo expect we’d “Otherwise, Trainor. says ofmusical training are probably modest, ( ( (

( day accompany aprescription. stages,some studiesarestillintheearly yourfavorite soundtrackmay one investigating music as a means to alleviate pain and enhance recovery. andsoul.Nowscientistsaretakingaliterallookatsuchmusings,the heart F Take two stanzas and call me in the morning Anxiety: alone. treatment standard the undergoing patients than nausea and pain less had transplants marrow bone from ing recover while sessions relaxation-imagery and music in participated C Pain andnausea: information. practical,learn everyday may helpthesepatients findings suggestthatsong rather thanspoken. The lyrics whenthey aresung for have abettermemory individuals withAlzheimer’s Studies have shownthat Alzheimer’s disease: Another studyshowed surgery, onestudyfound. levels duringandafterthe lowering bloodpressure soothed patientanxiety, cataract removal surgery music beforeglaucomaor |

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August 14, 2010 -

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- - - - - nect the cortex and feed down to the brain We know now that the pathways that con thelizard brainnot iswhat usedit be.to andmeaning happens,” Kraus says. “But cortex your into then stem, brain your domain,” Jentschke says. language the in skills processing with impairments with kids with help might training musical reason that assumption a able “It’s language. processing and music processing of intimacy ral Cognitive Neuroscience. rators reported in 2008 in the syntax, Koelsch, Jentschke and collabo - tax, also have trouble processing musical ficulties with grammar and complex syn dif by marked Impairment, Language Specific with kids holds; also tionship - rela inverse year.The last NeuroImage ture, Koelsch and Jentschke reported in at detecting violations in sentence struc London. better also are brains trained College Musically University at now Jentschke, Sebastian says training, out theseviolationsthankidswith- in chord structure. violations to reacts also brain The learned. have researchers brain, the of area specific a in fire structure,neurons irregular with spoken sentence a ing gone awry. Within milliseconds of hear construction of recognition brain’s the by evidenced is blocks building guage’s way how peoplehear. changing brain,” “lizard ancient arily evolution lower, the in circuitry tune fine- can turn in and music by shaped be can consciousness, and perception memory, in role key a plays which tex, highfalutin circuitry of the cerebral cor The processing. language influencing Kraus, says down, top the from brain skills.language to relevant than circuitry more higher-level the influences training that suggests music on brains Scrutinizing From thetop…down hs suis ihih te neu the highlight studies These at better are kids trained Musically Shared processingofmusic’s andlan- “We used to think in a very hierarchical the change also can music Playing

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stem … are actually more massive than Pitch-tracking in musicians Pitch-tracking in nonmusicians the ones going upstairs.” 140 140 This top-down tuning may influence a person’s ability to discriminate sounds of different frequencies, the processing of pitch. Pitch is the brain’s interpretation 90 90

of frequency, both in terms of absolute requency (Hz) requency (Hz) F F frequency and relative position on the musical scale. (Levitin notes that pitch 40 40 is the only musical attribute that varies 50 100 150 200 250 50 100 150 200 250 in the first seven notes of “Mary Had a Time (ms) Time (ms) Source: P.C.M. Wong Et Al/Nature Neuroscience 2007 Little Lamb.”) Pitch is crucial for convey- Follow that tone The Mandarin language conveys word meanings with tone. When a musician ing information: It determines whether with no knowledge of the language hears a Mandarin tone, activity in the brain stem (orange) tracks the phrase “You are going to wash the the frequency of the changing tone (black). The nonmusician’s brain is out of sync. dishes” is a question or a command. In languages such as Mandarin Chinese, This training-induced, top-down tun- very little extra neural resources to be saying the same syllable at a different ing appears to affect hearing in general. thinking about ‘What does this mean?’ ” pitch level gives the word an entirely dif- On a task known as backward masking, Kraus says. ferent meaning. in which subjects detect a sound masked If musicians’ responses are much Among people unfamiliar with Man- by a second sound, musicians with more less affected by background noise, she darin, musicians are better than non- than 10 years of musical training outper- says, musicians can devote more neu- musicians at discriminating between formed nonmusical peers, Kraus’ team ral resources to meaning rather than Mandarin syllables, Patrick Wong, Kraus reports in the March Hearing Research. just hearing. That suggests musical skill and others reported in Nature Neuro­ The musicians also performed better at could give children a learning benefit. science in 2007. Electrodes recording distinguishing cartoon characters based “If you have a nervous system in which brain activity revealed that a particular on the pitch of their sounds. the signal still comes through loud and pitch-related neural response, thought Listening skills such as the ability clear in a noisy classroom, now that kid to originate in the brain stem, was more to discriminate pitch or discern a sig- has an advantage,” Kraus says. robust in the musicians. nal from noise are related to some lan- For a clearer picture of the relationship Other work on the effects of musical guage impairments, including dyslexia, between musical training and learning, training suggests that it improves overall research suggests. People with dyslexia more studies are needed. But the accu- pitch processing. After six months, Por- often have a hard time reading — a diffi- mulating research is tantalizing, and tuguese third graders in a musical train- culty that is thought to result from trou- it suggests that upping the quality and ing group performed better on a reading ble transforming the letters on a page quantity of musical training in schools is task and on a pitch discrimination task into the sounds of language. This sound- warranted, Kraus and Northwestern col- than kids in a painting group, research- meaning connection happens before chil- league Bharath Chandrasekaran write in ers reported last year in Cerebral Cor­ dren learn to read, says Kraus, and may be the August Nature Reviews Neuroscience. tex. These results were also reflected in crucial for reading skills to develop. “Music has the power to transform brain wave activity, says study coauthor A team that included Kraus and Jane our nervous system in substantial, enor- Sylvain Moreno of the Rotman Research Hornickel, also from Northwestern, mous, unambiguous ways,” says Kraus. Institute and York University in Toronto. looked at how the auditory brain stem Many researchers now equate musical responded to the sounds of different training with learning to read. (Patel calls Hear this Musically trained adults can hear syllables for kids with a wide range of each of them a “transformative technol- words in background noise better than untrained reading abilities. Kids with the weakest ogy of the mind.”) Perfectly intelligent, peers (more negative index, better detection). reading skills had a harder time distin- capable people can do fine in life without Perceiving words within noise guishing the sounds ba, da and ga, the cracking a book or strumming a tune. But -3.5 team reported last year in Proceedings both can make the mind sing.  of the National Academy of Sciences. -3 Everyone has trouble hearing in a Explore more noisy restaurant. But children with dys- ss Nina Kraus’ laboratory: -2.5 lexia can have an even harder time per- www.soc.northwestern.edu/brainvolts/ ceiving sounds in noisy conditions. “If ss Daniel J. Levitin. This Is Your Brain on

Perception/noiseindex -2 Musicians Nonmusicians you’ve got a kid who is just struggling to Music: The Science of a Human Obses- Source: A. Parbery-clark et al/Ear & Hearing 2009 hear what the teacher is saying, he’s got sion. Dutton, 2006. www.sciencenews.org August 14, 2010 | science news | 33