Want to Train Your Brain? Forget Apps, Learn a Musical Instrument

Posted by Ashok Rawat on

Want to Train Your Brain? Forget Apps, learn a musical instrument

The multimillion-dollar brain training industry is under attack. There was an open letter written by neurologists and psychologists who wrote an open letter warning that the companies are giving false claims of promoting brain games which are misleading and exaggerated. Many industry lead companies like Lumosity were fined 2m$ and were ordered to refund thousands of money to the customers who fell into the trap of mental abilities promoting products.

Much research proves that games and apps have failed to promote any mental activities. According to researchers, brain cells are activated through the activities and lifestyle we choose. These activities have a neurological effect on brain health and make the mind sharper and sharper. 

Musical instruction is one of them. Learning to play a musical instrument is beneficial to both children and adults and those recuperating from brain damage.

According to some neuropsychologists, music brings out something unique in you. Because of our emotional attachment to it, it activates the brain in a really powerful way.    

Learning to play a musical instrument is a rich and complicated experience that entails integrating information from the senses of vision, hearing, touch, and tiny movements. Learning to do so can result in long-term brain alterations. Professional musicians are highly competent performers who have spent years honing their craft. They serve as a perfect laboratory for neuroscientists to examine how such changes known as experience-dependent plasticity occur throughout their lives.

 

Music causes changes in the brain anatomy.

 

The brain structure of musicians and non-musicians of the same age differed significantly in early brain scanning investigations. The corpus callosum, a vast bundle of nerve fibers that connects the two sides of the brain, is, for example, much bigger among musicians. Professional keyboard players also appear to have bigger brain regions involving movement, hearing, and visuospatial skills. The region dedicated to processing touch signals from the left hand is also larger in violinists.

Learning to play a musical instrument has been shown in studies to enhance grey matter volume in multiple brain areas and build long-range connections between them. According to other studies, musical training improves verbal memory, spatial thinking, and literacy skills, whereas professional musicians outperform non-musicians.

Benefits for artists that will endure a long time

According to brain scanning research, the level of structural change in musicians' brains is directly connected to the age at which musical instruction began and the intensity of training. Compared to non-musicians, those who began practising at a young age exhibited the most significant modifications.

Even brief durations of musical instruction in early life can reap long-term rewards.

The researchers utilised scalp electrodes to monitor the timing of neural responses in a section of the auditory brainstem while playing recordings of complicated speech sounds to the individuals. Our timing becomes less precise as we become older, making it more difficult to interpret speech, particularly in noisy surroundings. Participants who had received modest amounts of musical instruction had the quickest brain responses, indicating that even a small amount of musical training in infancy can sustain sharp speech processing and boost resistance to age-related hearing loss.

More recently, it has become clear that musical training aids in the rehabilitation of patients recovering from stroke and other forms of brain damage, and some researchers now argue that it may also help children with dyslexia and other language impairments improve their speech processing and learning. Furthermore, the benefits of musical training appear to last for years, if not decades. The overall picture from all of the research is that learning to play a musical instrument as a youngster protects the brain from cognitive deterioration and dementia.

Unlike commercial brain training products, which only improve performance on the skills involved, musical instrument training has what psychologists call transfer effects, which means that learning to play a musical instrument appears to have a much broader effect on the brain and mental function, as well as improving seemingly unrelated abilities. With good quality and effects PowerPak provides the best musical instruments

 

Conclusion

As a result, learning to play a musical instrument appears to be one of the most effective types of brain training available. Depending on the instrument being taught and the severity of the training regimen, musical instruction can cause anatomical and functional changes in the brain. It's an example of how a lifetime of experience can radically modify the brain, allowing it to adapt to the quirks of its owner's lifestyle.


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