Northwestern University (Illinois, USA) researchers provide key biological evidence that demonstrates that a lifelong musical experience has a beneficial impact on the aging process. Nina Kraus and colleagues measured the automatic brain responses of younger and older musicians and non-musicians to speech sound, finding that older musicians not only outperformed their older non-musician counterparts, they encoded the sound stimuli as quickly and accurately as the younger non-musicians. Showing that musical experience selectively affected the timing of sound elements that are important in distinguishing one consonant from another, the study authors conclude that: “we document a musician’s resilience to age-related delays in neural timing.”
Music Training Beneficially Impacts Aging Process
Age-related delays in neural timing are not inevitable and can be avoided or offset with musical training.
Alexandra Parbery-Clark, Samira Anderson, Emily Hittner, Nina Kraus. “Musical experience offsets age-related delays in neural timing.” Neurobiology of Aging, 9 January 2012.
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