Playing an instrument as a kid leads to a sharper mind in old age, according to a new study. Emory University neuropsychologist Brenda Hanna-Pladdy and her colleagues gave 70 people between the ages of 60 and 83 a battery of tests to measure memory and other cognitive abilities. The researchers found that those who had played an instrument for a decade or longer scored significantly higher on the tests than those with no musical background. Hanna-Pladdy says that music lessons, as with learning a second language, might stave off age-related cognitive decline.

This article was originally published with the title Musicians Stay Sharp.

3 Comments

1. 1. sunnystrobe 09:13 AM 9/21/11

   This is music to my ears! (Ageing though they may be, they purvey a lot of pleasure to my pleasure centre, located between my ears, and this message makes sense to me, from the evolutionary perspective, too, what with music being the food of love! ( I love listening to the Australian bird songs, performed by some testosterone-rich members of the male species at this time of the year..)
   This deeply biological function of music can be understood as a natural molecular little 'brain storm', connecting micro- muscular coordination skills (guttural, lingual, manual, or otherwise) with nicely emotional neural links in the brain; and we know that nothing sticks better in our memory than the principle of 'once more, with FEELING!"
   Our languages are nothing other than variations on a theme :of word- music, I think, and I am now deeply grateful to the German schooling schedule that I had to undergo some fifty & sixty years ago; now, at last, I can really relish the sheer enjoyment and fun of any melodious music, and languages like French, German, Italian, with a little Latin,& Greek thrown in, at my ripe old age of threescore and eight!
   Hopefully, there's no timeslot for Alzheimer's left in my precious little brain cells, given that I feed them only the best! (i.e. NO junkfood grease, please! Youthevity.com)

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2. 2. apache 02:59 PM 9/21/11

   Okay, I don't mind be required to view an advertisment in exchange for reading an (entire)artical. However, if S.A. is going to force us to watch an ad and then only show the first paragraph ... I find this insulting and for the record I will never buy a product that was advertised to me in such a way.

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3. 3. Postulator 06:29 AM 9/22/11

   Old musicians never die, they just get played out.
   
   And Apache, I didn't get the ad so assume that it's played randomly to people entering the Scientific American website rather than based on the specific page. But I agree, if I have an ad forced on me I make every effort to escape it and the product it's pushing.
   

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