A study has found that using music to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain.

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Bob Cunningham
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A study has found that using music to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain.

Postby Bob Cunningham » July 7th, 2017, 11:31 am

Interesting article. The article does NOT state that learning a new skill while listening to music improves mastery of that skill. But improving brain connectivity while practicing new slights can't be a bad thing :-)


http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017 ... vity-study

People who practised a basic movement to music showed "increased structural connectivity" between the regions of the brain that process sound and control movement, the University of Edinburgh research shows.

The findings - published in the medical journal Brain & Cognition - showed that brain wiring enables cells to communicate with each other.

Experts say the study could have positive implications for future research into rehabilitation for patients who have lost some degree of movement control.

Dr Katie Overy, who led the research team, said: "The study suggests that music makes a key difference. We have long known that music encourages people to move.

"This study provides the first experimental evidence that adding musical cues to learning new motor task can lead to changes in white matter structure in the brain."

Researchers divided right-handed volunteers into two groups and charged them with learning a new task involving sequences of finger movements with the non-dominant left hand.

One group learned the task with musical cues while the other group did so without music.

After four weeks, both groups of volunteers performed equally well at learning sequences, the researchers found.

Using MRI scans, the study found the music group showed "a significant increase" in structural connectivity on the right side of the brain while the non-music group showed no change.

The team hopes that future research will determine whether music can help with special kinds of motor rehabilitation programmes, such as after a stroke.

The project brought together researchers from the university's Institute for Music in Human and Social Development, Clinical Research Imaging Centre and Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, and from clinical neuropsychology at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

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Q. Kumber
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Re: A study has found that using music to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain.

Postby Q. Kumber » July 7th, 2017, 12:37 pm

There was a similar report about 30 years ago which suggested listening to Baroque music while practising a physical task would help.

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Bob Cunningham
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Re: A study has found that using music to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain.

Postby Bob Cunningham » July 7th, 2017, 2:08 pm

I think the study was ignored because the methodology was "Baroque-en" :-)

jason156
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Re: A study has found that using music to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain.

Postby jason156 » July 8th, 2017, 5:59 pm

Who was it who suggested practicing while playing music, because it would help you to learn to ignore/tune out ambient noise?


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