Music lessons in early childhood lead to changes in the brain that could improve its performance far into adulthood, researchers say.
Brain scans of young adults revealed that those who had formal musical training before the age of seven had thicker brain regions that deal with hearing and self-awareness.
The findings highlight how brain development can be influenced by the age that children start to learn a musical instrument, and how those changes can persist into later life.
"Early musical training does more good for kids than just making it easier for them to enjoy music. It changes the brain and these brain changes could lead to cognitive advances as well," said Yunxin Wang of Beijing Normal University.
"Our results suggest it might be better to start musical training before age seven, which is consistent with what most piano teachers recommend," she added.
Wang devised the study to investigate whether musical training early on in life had any lasting effect on the structure of the brain. She hoped the results might help parents decide when was best for their children to learn an instrument.
The brain's cortex plays a leading role in scores of crucial abilities, from thought and language to memory and attention. The region matures rapidly in the early years of life, and its development could be affected more if a person started musical training before it fully matured.
Wang studied 48 Han Chinese aged between 19 and 21 who had received formal music training for at least a year sometime between the ages of three and 15. Each had a magnetic resonance scan to measure the thickness of the cortex and the volume of grey matter in their brains.
After taking gender and the number of years spent having music lessons into account, Wang found that musical training that started before the age of seven appeared to thicken areas of the brain involved in language skills and executive function, which is a person's ability to plan and carry out tasks. She presented the results at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
"We're not sure why these changes arise, but a reasonable explanation is that early starters might rely more on auditory clues during learning music, since it might be more difficult for younger children to read music," Wang said.
The findings build on earlier work that suggests musical training before the age of seven can have a significant impact on the brain's development. Earlier this year, researchers at Concordia University in Montreal showed that people who took music lessons before seven years old had stronger connections between motor regions of the brain, which are involved in making movements, and the sensory areas.
Wang hopes to look at whether the age people start musical training has any meaningful impact on their cognitive skills as an adult, and on the rate at which their brain function declines with age. "As we know the brain is the executive organ of our mind, these changes might possibly reduce the ageing of the auditory system," she said.
研究者称，儿童早期的音乐训练可以提高成年时的脑力。
对青少年的大脑扫描表明，在七岁之前有过正规音乐训练的人，处理听力与自我意识的大脑区域会相对更厚。
这一发现强调，孩提时期的乐器学习如何对大脑发展产生影响以及这些影响是如何在日后生活中延续的。
“早期的音乐训练比让孩子单纯地欣赏音乐更有好处。音乐训练可以改变改变大脑，这些改变又带来认知研究进展，”北京师范大学的王云馨（音）说道。
她补充道，“这个结果表明，孩子在七岁之前进行音乐训练比较好，许多钢琴老师也是这样建议的。”
王设计了一项研究，调查早期的音乐训练是否对大脑结构有持续的影响。她希望研究结果可以帮助父母了解何时开始学习乐器对孩子是最好的。
大脑皮质对思考与表达、记忆与注意力的能力而言具有决定性作用。这个区域在幼年迅速成熟，但是如果在其还未完全成熟时进行音乐训练，对大脑皮质的发展具有重要影响。
王对48个19-21岁并在其3-15岁进行过至少一年音乐训练的汉族学生进行了调查，通过对每个学生进行磁共振扫描来测量皮质厚度和大脑中的灰质体积。
在将性别与音乐训练的年限纳入考虑因素后，王发现七岁之前有进行过音乐训练的人在语言能力和计划与执行能力方面的大脑区域更厚，执行能力主要涉及制定计划和完成任务。她在圣地亚哥的神经系统科学学会年会上展示了这一结果。
“我们还不知道为什么会发生这种变化，但是一个合理的解释可能是，幼年学习音乐的儿童在学习过程中，会把注意力集中在听觉线索上，因为解读音乐对他们来说实在太难。”
这个发现建立在今年初的研究基础之上，本年初的研究发现，七岁之前的音乐培训对大脑发展具有重要意义。其中，蒙特利尔的康考迪亚大学的研究者发现，在七岁之前参加音乐课程的人的大脑运动区域之间有更强的联系，包括运动区和感觉区。
王表示，她希望可以观察早期的音乐训练对成年人的认知能力是否有影响，以及在什么年龄段大脑机能开始衰退。“就我们所知，大脑是思想的执行者，这些变化可能会减缓听觉系统的老化。”王说道。