Lifelong musical activity is associated with multi-domain cognitive and brain benefits in older adults

Abstract

Regular musical activity as a highly-stimulating lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study investigated associations between lifelong regular musical instrument playing, late-life cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults. We show that musical activity over the life course is associated with better global cognition, working memory, executive functions, language, and visuospatial abilities accounting for reserve proxies. Playing music is not significantly associated with gray matter volume in regions most affected by aging and AD. Selectively in the musically active participants, multi-domain cognitive abilities were enhanced with preserved gray matter volume in frontal and temporal regions. Our correlational findings suggest that playing a musical instrument may improve the recruitment of existing brain resources to facilitate late-life cognitive capacities. We propose that engaging in regular musical activity could serve as a low-threshold multimodal enrichment strategy that may promote cognitive resilience in advanced age.

Musical experience prior to traumatic exposure as a resilience factor: a conceptual analysis

“…Consequently, playing and listening to music seem to be activities that can promote the building of resistance and reserve (Herholz et al, 2013;Andrews et al, 2021;Böttcher et al, 2022). Building up good CR and BR across the lifecourse delays the clinical manifestation of many neurological pathologies (Barnett et al, 2006;Baird and Samson, 2015).…”

“…Music has so far been assumed to alleviate the symptoms of PTSD (Hernandez-Ruiz, 2005;Carr et al, 2012;Pezzin et al, 2018;Beck et al, 2021;Pant et al, 2022), but not to protect against the development of PTSD. Given the strong neuroplasticity that music induces (Gaser and Schlaug, 2003;Lappe et al, 2008;Stewart, 2008;Herholz and Zatorre, 2012), we can surmise that it contributes to the building of resistance and reserve (Herholz et al, 2013;Baird and Samson, 2015;Andrews et al, 2021;Böttcher et al, 2022), as the brain areas that are functionally and anatomically affected in PTSD are precisely those that are activated during listening and musical practice (Figure 1; Table 1 in Supplementary material). More specifically, music leads to structural and functional modifications in a number of brain areas, including the motor cortex, auditory cortex, frontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala (Stewart, 2008;Bermudez et al, 2009;Groussard et al, 2010;Rodrigues et al, 2010;Koelsch et al, 2013;Fauvel et al, 2014).…”