Musical instrument training program improves verbal memory and neural efficiency in novice older adults

Research in basic and clinical neuroscience of music conducted over the past decades has begun to uncover music’s high potential as a tool for rehabilitation. Advances in our understanding of how music engages parallel brain networks underpinning sensory and motor processes, arousal, reward, and affective regulation, have laid a sound neuroscientific foundation for the development of theory-driven music interventions that have been systematically tested in clinical settings. Of particular significance in the context of motor rehabilitation is the notion that musical rhythms can entrain movement patterns in patients with movement-related disorders, serving as a continuous time reference that can help regulate movement timing and pace. To date, a significant number of clinical and experimental studies have tested the application of rhythm- and music-based interventions to improve motor functions following central nervous injury and/or degeneration. The goal of this review is to appraise the current state of knowledge on the effectiveness of music and rhythm to modulate movement spatiotemporal patterns and restore motor function. By organizing and providing a critical appraisal of a large body of research, we hope to provide a revised framework for future research on the effectiveness of rhythm- and music-based interventions to restore and (re)train motor function.

Section: Clinical Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rhythm and Music-Based Interventions in Motor Rehabilitation: Current Evidence and Future Perspectives

Janzen

Koshimori

Richard

et al. 2022

“…Because these studies showed within-nonmusicians differences in levels of load of executive function for different complexity of tapping, the relationship between the previous findings and our between-groups difference cannot be clearly interpreted. Since musical performance requires motor planning and monitoring of finger movement (Palmer and Drake, 1997;Moreno et al, 2011;Shen et al, 2019;Colombo et al, 2020;Guo et al, 2021), we suggest that musicians perform finger taps with higher executive involvement compared to non-musicians even when they are simple ones. The higher levels of executive function in musicians can be maintained by the same processes to enable masterful temporal and ordinal precision of finger movements, together with fine-grained finger force control.…”

Section: The Effect Of Lifelong Musical Training: From Skillful Tapping To Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Neural Advantages of Older Musicians Involve the Cerebellum: Implications for Healthy Aging Through Lifelong Musical Instrument Training

Yamashita

Ohsawa

Suzuki

et al. 2022

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This study compared 30 older musicians and 30 age-matched non-musicians to investigate the association between lifelong musical instrument training and age-related cognitive decline and brain atrophy (musicians: mean age 70.8 years, musical experience 52.7 years; non-musicians: mean age 71.4 years, no or less than 3 years of musical experience). Although previous research has demonstrated that young musicians have larger gray matter volume (GMV) in the auditory-motor cortices and cerebellum than non-musicians, little is known about older musicians. Music imagery in young musicians is also known to share a neural underpinning [the supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and cerebellum] with music performance. Thus, we hypothesized that older musicians would show superiority to non-musicians in some of the abovementioned brain regions. Behavioral performance, GMV, and brain activity, including functional connectivity (FC) during melodic working memory (MWM) tasks, were evaluated in both groups. Behaviorally, musicians exhibited a much higher tapping speed than non-musicians, and tapping speed was correlated with executive function in musicians. Structural analyses revealed larger GMVs in both sides of the cerebellum of musicians, and importantly, this was maintained until very old age. Task-related FC analyses revealed that musicians possessed greater cerebellar-hippocampal FC, which was correlated with tapping speed. Furthermore, musicians showed higher activation in the SMG during MWM tasks; this was correlated with earlier commencement of instrumental training. These results indicate advantages or heightened coupling in brain regions associated with music performance and imagery in musicians. We suggest that lifelong instrumental training highly predicts the structural maintenance of the cerebellum and related cognitive maintenance in old age.

“…Cognitive tests consisted of the Japanese versions of parts A and B of the trail-making test (TMT; Reitan and Wolfson, 1993 ) and logical memory-I and -II subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised edition (WMS-R; Wechsler, 1997 ; Sugishita, 2000 ). Motor tests consisted of timed up and go (TUG; Podsiadlo and Richardson, 1991 ) and pegboard (Guo et al, 2020 ) tasks.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Next, the associations between sports traits and the GMVs in the ROIs were investigated. Based on the structural result differences between the groups, we used MarsBaR software (Brett et al, 2002 ) to extract spherical ROIs that centered on the local maximal peaks of the significant clusters (we used sub-clusters for overly large clusters) that were located within a 10-mm radius of the regions identified in the aforementioned analysis (Guo et al, 2020 ). Correlation analyses were conducted using the Pearson’s correlation coefficient.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Early-Commenced and Continued Sports Training on the Precuneus in Older Athletes

Yamashita

Suzuki

Kawagoe

et al. 2021

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Intervention studies on sedentary older adults have demonstrated that commencing physical exercise at an older age has a positive effect on brain structure. Although this suggests that older athletes with lifelong sports training have larger gray matter volume (GMV) in some brain regions compared to age-matched non-athletes, evidence in the literature is scarce. Moreover, it remains unclear whether a larger GMV is associated with training intensity or period of training in life. To address these gaps in the literature, we compared regional brain GMV between 24 older athletes (mean age, 71.4 years; age at the commencement of sports training, 31.2 years, continuous sports training, 40.0 years; current training time, 7.9 h/week) and 24 age-matched non-athletes (mean age, 71.0 years). The period of sports training and the current training time of the athletes were assessed. Both groups were evaluated for physical activity intensity as well as cognitive and motor performance. Although no group differences were noted in cognitive and motor performance, athletes reported higher physical activity intensity than non-athletes. Whole-brain structural analysis revealed a significantly larger GMV in several brain regions in athletes. Notably, the GMV of the precuneus in athletes was positively correlated with earlier commencement of sports training and training duration but was negatively correlated with current training time. Our findings demonstrate that early-commenced and continued sports training predicts structural maintenance of the precuneus in old age. Our results also suggest that excessive training time in old age may have a negative impact on the GMV of the precuneus; thereby delineating how the precuneus is associated with lifelong sports training in older athletes.