Music & Intelligence: Will Listening to Music Make You Smarter?

Will listening to music make you smarter? Will studying to play a musical instrument make your brain grow larger than normal?

Music & Intelligence: Will Listening to Music Make You Smarter?

Questions like these ones have been popping up all over the place in the past few years, and not just in scientific journals either.

In up-to-date times the media has been fascinated by the explore surrounding brain amelioration and music, eagerly reporting on the latest studies to the pleasure of the music-loving parents of young children.

But all this data - and some misinformation too - has led to generalized confusion about the role of music and music training in the amelioration of the human brain. The bottom line is this: if you're confused by all you read about music study and brain development, you're admittedly not alone.

In part, this is due to the manner in which the phrase "the Mozart Effect" has been popularized by the media and bandied about to characterize any situation in which music has a clear consequent on cognition or behavior.

In fact the Mozart consequent refers specifically to a 1993 explore seeing by Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and Katherine Ky and published in the prestigious journal Nature. The scientists found that 36 college students who listened to 10 minutes of a Mozart sonata performed higher on a subsequent spatial-temporal task than after they listened to leisure instructions or silence.

An enchanted media reported this spirited explore as "Mozart makes you smarter" - a huge over-simplification of the original results.

As Rauscher explains in a later paper, the Mozart consequent was studied only in adults, lasted only for a few minutes and was found only for spatial temporal reasoning. Nevertheless, the seeing has since launched an commerce that includes books, Cds and websites claiming that listening to classical music can make children more intelligent.

The scientific controversy - not to mention the popular confusion - surrounding the Mozart Effect, has given rise to a corresponding perplexity for parents. They wonder: "Should my kids even bother with music education?"

In fact the talk to this question is still a resounding yes, since numerous explore studies do prove that studying music contributes unequivocally to the clear amelioration of the human brain. Other researchers have since replicated the original 1993 seeing that listening to Mozart improves spatial reasoning. And additional explore by Rauscher and her colleagues in 1994 showed that after eight months of keyboard lessons, preschoolers demonstrated a 46% boost in their spatial reasoning Iq, a skill important for clear types of mathematical reasoning.

In particular, it is early music training that appears to most develop the connections in the middle of brain neurons and possibly even leads to the preparing of new pathways. But explore shows music training has more than a casual connection to the long-term amelioration of definite parts of the brain too.

In 1994 contemplate magazine published an report which discussed explore by Gottfried Schlaug, Herman Steinmetz and their colleagues at the University of Dusseldorf. The group compared magnetic resonance images (Mri) of the brains of 27 classically trained right-handed male piano or string players, with those of 27 right-handed male non-musicians.

Intriguingly, they found that in the musicians' planum temporale - a brain buildings associated with auditory processing - was bigger in the left hemisphere and smaller in the right than in the non-musicians. The musicians also had a thicker nerve-fiber tract in the middle of the hemisphere. The differences were especially astonishing among musicians who began training before the age of seven.

According to Shlaug, music study also promotes growth of the corpus callosum, a sort of bridge in the middle of the two hemispheres of the brain. He found that among musicians who started their training before the age of seven, the corpus callosum is 10-15% thicker than in non-musicians.

At the time, Schlaug and other researchers speculated that a larger corpus callosum might improve motor control by speeding up transportation in the middle of the hemispheres.

Since then, a study by Dartmouth music psychologist Petr Janata published by Science in 2002, has confirmed that music prompts greater connectivity in the middle of the brains left and right hemisphere and in the middle of the areas responsible for emotion and memory, than does practically any other stimulus.

Janata led a team of scientists who reported some areas of the brain are 5% larger in expert musicians than they are in citizen with minute or no musical training, and that the auditory cortex in professional musicians is 130% denser than in non-musicians. In fact, among musicians who began their musical studies in early childhood, the corpus callosum, a four-inch bundle of nerve fibers connecting the left and right sides of the brain, can be up to 15% larger.

While it is now clear from explore studies that brain region connectivity and some types of spatial reasoning functionality is improved by music training, there is growing evidence that detailed and skilled motor movements are also enhanced.

Apparently the corpus callosum in musicians is critical for tasks such as finger coordination. Like a weight-lifter's biceps, this portion of the brain enlarges to accommodate the increased labour assigned to it.

In a study conducted by Dr. Timo Krings and reported in Neuroscience Letters in 2000, pianists and non-musicians of the same age and sex were required to achieve complex sequences of finger movements. The non-musicians were able to make the movements as correctly as the pianists, but less operation was detected in the pianists' brains. The scientists fulfilled, that compared to non-musicians, the brains of pianists are more efficient at manufacture skilled movements.

The study of music surely affects the human brain and its development, in a incredible whole of ways. But what to make of all the research, especially in terms of choosing the best procedure of music study or appreciation for yourself or your offspring?

A 2000 report by N M Weinberger in MuSica explore Notes makes the following exquisite point: Although the Mozart consequent may not list up to the unjustified hopes of the public, it has brought unabridged interest in music explore to the public. And listening to ten minutes of Mozart could get person concerned in listening to more unfamiliar music, opening up new vistas.

Irregardless of the hype surrounding the Mozart Effect, the unabridged academic evidence for music study as a tool to aid brain development, is compelling.

At the University of California School of medicine in San Francisco, Dr. Frank Wilson says his explore shows instrumental custom enhances coordination, attentiveness and memory and also brings about the improvement of eyesight and hearing. His studies have shown that involvement in music connects and develops the motor systems of the brain, refining the whole neurological principles in ways that cannot be done by any other activity. Dr. Wilson goes so far as to say he believes music schooling is admittedly 'necessary' for the total amelioration of the brain.

So the bottom line is this: Music study and custom probably does aid in the amelioration of the brain in varied important ways. And after all, if you enjoy music, there is nothing to lose by trying, and all things to gain!

Music & Intelligence: Will Listening to Music Make You Smarter?