Understanding the Benefits of Musical Training Journal Articles

abstract

• A number of studies suggest that musical training has benefits for other cognitive domains, such as language and mathematics, and studies of children and adults indicate structural as well as functional differences between the brains of musicians and nonmusicians. The induced gamma‐band response has been associated with attentional, expectation, memory retrieval, and integration of top‐down, bottom‐up, and multisensory processes. Here we report data indicating that the induced gamma‐band response to musical sounds is larger in adult musicians than in nonmusicians and that it develops in children after 1 year of musical training beginning at age 41/2 years, but not in children of this age who are not engaged in musical lessons. We conclude that musical training affects oscillatory networks in the brain associated with executive functions, and that superior executive functioning could enhance learning and performance in many cognitive domains.

authors

• Trainor, Laurel
• Shahin, Antoine J
• Roberts, Larry E

status

• published 

publication date

• July 2009

has subject area

• Adult (MeSH)
• Auditory Perception (MeSH)
• Brain (MeSH)
• Child, Preschool (MeSH)
• Cognition (MeSH)
• Education (MeSH)
• General Science & Technology (Science Metrix)
• Humans (MeSH)
• Learning (MeSH)
• Music (MeSH)

published in

• Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences  Journal

keywords

• Adult
• Auditory Perception
• Brain
• Child, Preschool
• Cognition
• Education
• Humans
• Learning
• Music

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04589.x

PubMed ID

• 19673769

start page

• 133

end page

• 142

volume

• 1169

issue

• 1