A new study shows older musicians display more youthful brain activity patterns when processing speech compared to older non-musicians.
The study, published in PLOS Biology, was a collaboration between researchers at the Chinese Academy of Science and the Baycrest Academy for Research and Education in Canada.
“Normal aging is typically associated with decline in sensory and cognitive functions,” the authors say.
When it comes to hearing, previous studies have found that auditory perception can begin declining as early as 30 years old. By 80 years old, 70% of subjects have measurable hearing loss.
The team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain activity of 75 participants. Of the participants, 25 were older musicians, 25 were older nonmusicians and the remaining 24 were young non-musicians.
One activity the participants were asked to perform was to identify syllables that were masked by noise sounds. The researchers analysed participants’ speech processing, focusing on the neural responses with the auditory dorsal system.
The auditory dorsal system, which includes auditory and frontal motor areas of the brain, has 2 important roles in speech processing.I It identifies what is making the sound and where the sound is coming from.
After analysing the participants’ fMRIs, the results showed older musicians had reduced age-related decline in speech-in-noise processing compared to older non-musicians.
The team found that brain patterns of older musicians appeared more youth-like, while brain patterns of non-musicians consistently deviated from young non-musicians.
These results support the Cognitive Reserve Theory, which suggests that cognitive activities like learning a musical instrument or a new language can help mitigate age-related brain decline.
“A positive lifestyle helps older adults cope better with cognitive aging,” says Dr Lei Zhang, lead author of the study. “It is never too late to take up, and stick with, a rewarding hobby such as learning an instrument.”
The researchers also observed that older musicians demonstrated a connectivity strength in the right hemisphere of the brain that resembled young non-musicians.
“Just like a well-tuned instrument doesn’t need to be played louder to be heard, the brains of older musicians stay finely tuned thanks to years of training,” says co-author Dr Yi Du. “Our study shows that this musical experience builds cognitive reserve, helping their brains avoid the usual age-related overexertion when trying to understand speech in noisy places.”
While the study’s design meant the researchers were unable to make conclusions about cause-and-effect relationships, they were able to account for some factors.
“While we observed differences in years of education between older musicians and nonmusicians, supplementary analysis of covariance to assess the effect of education confirmed that years of education did not significantly influence our behavioural or neural measures,” say the authors.
With the aid of further research into different cognitive tasks, like memory and attention, this research could help develop interventions for aging populations to help preserve cognitive function.