Musicians’ Brains Demonstrate Neuroplasticity

From a review of studies by Jäncke L: Purpose: In this review I summarize and discuss reported findings of structural and functional plasticity in the intact human brain. Methods: The main focus is placed on research that uses musicians as Read More …

Music and Art Modulate Brain Waves to Reduce Pain

From a study by Chen AC : Pain perception and its genesis in the human brain have been reviewed recently. In the current article, the reports on pain modulation in the human brain were reviewed from higher cortical regulation, i.e. Read More …

Musicians Have Better Brainstems

From a study by Wong PC, Skoe E, Russo NM, Dees T, and Kraus N: Music and speech are very cognitively demanding auditory phenomena generally attributed to cortical rather than subcortical circuitry. We examined brainstem encoding of linguistic pitch and Read More …

Sight-reading Enhances Cognitive Function

From a study by Sluming V, Brooks J, Howard M, Downes JJ, and Roberts N: We provide neurobehavioral evidence supporting the transferable benefit of music training to alter brain function and enhance cognitive performance [emphasis added] in a nonmusical visuospatial Read More …

Musicians Have Greater Cortical Thickness

From a study by Patrick Bermudez, Jason P. Lerch, Alan C. Evans, Robert J. Zatorre: Subject groups were 53 non-musicians and 53 musicians (10 years or more of musical experience, 21 with absolute pitch). T1 MR images were RF inhomogeneity Read More …

Our Brains are Hard-Wired for Pleasant Music

From a study by Nathalie Gosselin, Séverine Samson, Ralph Adolphs, Marion Noulhiane, Mathieu Roy, Dominique Hasboun, Michel Baulac, and Isabelle Peretz : Music is typically a pleasurable experience. But under certain circumstances, music can also be unpleasant, for example, when Read More …

Classical Music and Literacy

From Web MD : Sept. 24, 2007 — Learning music may help children’s communication skills more than studying phonics [emphasis added], according to a new study. The study shows musical training enhances the same processing skills in the brain and Read More …

Classical Music – Like Going to the Gym for your Brain?

Some people are born without the corpus callosum, a structure residing between the two halves of the brain that facilitates communication between them. This is called “Agenesis of the corpus callosum” (AgCC) and is extremely rare but fairly well-studied. Older Read More …