Childhood Music Training Induces Change in Micro and Macroscopic Brain Structure: Results from a Longitudinal Study.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Prospective non-randomized controlled cohort study
PubMed 29126181 · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhx286
What was done
As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, researchers followed children starting at age 6 over a two-year period to assess the impact of music training on brain development. The music training group was compared to two control cohorts of similar socioeconomic backgrounds: children engaged in sports training and children participating in no systematic after-school training. Baseline brain scans established that there were no pre-existing macro- or microstructural differences between groups prior to training.
What was found
The abstract reports no exact sample sizes, numerical values, effect sizes, or confidence intervals. It qualitatively reports that after two years: 1. Children in the music group exhibited a different rate of cortical thickness maturation between the left and right posterior superior temporal gyrus compared to controls. 2. Children in the music group developed higher fractional anisotropy in the corpus callosum, specifically in crossing pathways connecting superior frontal, sensory, and motor segments.
Why it matters
This study provides prospective evidence that structural brain differences observed in musicians can be induced by childhood training rather than solely reflecting pre-existing biological selection biases.
Limits
The abstract omits sample sizes, attrition rates, and quantitative statistical metrics. Assignment to training was non-randomized, meaning unmeasured motivational or environmental confounders could influence outcomes despite socioeconomic matching. The abstract also does not report whether structural brain differences corresponded to behavioral or cognitive performance changes.
Cited by
- partial Research by Assal Habibi at the University of Southern California demonstrated that arts/music training alters brain structure and increases brain mass.