Musical training shapes structural brain development

Abstract

The human brain has the remarkable capacity to alter in response to environmental demands. Training-induced structural brain changes have been demonstrated in the healthy adult human brain. However, no study has yet directly related structural brain changes to behavioral changes in the developing brain, addressing the question of whether structural brain differences seen in adults (comparing experts with matched controls) are a product of "nature" (via biological brain predispositions) or "nurture" (via early training). Long-term instrumental music training is an intense, multisensory, and motor experience and offers an ideal opportunity to study structural brain plasticity in the developing brain in correlation with behavioral changes induced by training. Here we demonstrate structural brain changes after only 15 months of musical training in early childhood, which were correlated with improvements in musically relevant motor and auditory skills. These findings shed light on brain plasticity and suggest that structural brain differences in adult experts (whether musicians or experts in other areas) are likely due to training-induced brain plasticity.

Figure 1.

Longitudinal group brain deformation differences and brain–behavioral correlations in primary motor area. The brain image (a horizontal slice) shows areas of significant difference in relative voxel size over 15 months in instrumental (n = 15) versus control (n = 16) children in terms of a t-statistical color map of the significant clusters superimposed on an average MR image of all children (n = 31). The yellow arrow points to the primary motor area (right precentral gyrus). To illustrate the group differences, the relative voxel size (expressed as the mean by the horizontal dark black line, 25% and 75% quartiles by the top and bottom lines of the box, SDs by the errors bars, and outliers by circles) is plotted for each group at the most significant (peak) voxel in the right precentral gyrus (x = 40, y = −7, z = 57; t = 4.2, p < 0.05 at whole-brain cluster threshold) (a). A voxel with a relative voxel size of 1 indicates no brain deformation change from time 1, values >1 indicate voxel expansion, and values <1 indicate voxel contraction. For example, a value of 1.1 at voxel X indicates a 10% expansion from time 1, whereas 0.9 indicates a 10% contraction (this also applies to Figs. 2, 3). The significant positive correlation of relative voxel size with behavioral difference scores (from time 1 to time 2) of each child on the left-hand motor test that was found at the peak voxel in the right precentral gyrus is shown in b.

Figure 2.

Longitudinal group brain deformation differences and brain–behavioral correlations in the corpus callosum. The brain image (a sagittal slice) shows areas of significant difference in relative voxel size over 15 months in instrumental (n = 15) versus control (n = 16) children in terms of a t-statistical color map of the significant clusters superimposed on an average MR image of all children (n = 31). The yellow arrow points to the corpus callosum. To illustrate the group differences, the relative voxel size is plotted for each group at the most significant (peak) voxel in the corpus callosum (x = 14, y = −24, z = 30; t = 5.2, p < 0.05 at whole-brain cluster threshold) (a). The significant positive correlation of relative voxel size with behavioral difference scores (from time 1 to time 2) of each child is shown for the left-hand motor test at the peak voxel in the corpus callosum (b).

Figure 3.

Longitudinal group brain deformation differences and brain–behavioral correlations in right primary auditory area. The brain image (a horizontal slice) shows areas of significant difference in relative voxel size over 15 months in instrumental (n = 15) versus control (n = 16) children in terms of a t-statistical color map of the significant clusters superimposed on an average MR image of all children (n = 31). The yellow arrow points to the right primary auditory region (lateral aspect of Heschl's gyrus). To illustrate the group differences, the relative voxel size is plotted for each group at the most significant (peak) voxel in the right primary auditory region (x = 55, y = −8, z = 10; t = 4.9, p < 0.1 at a priori cluster threshold) (a). The significant positive correlations of relative voxel size with behavioral difference scores (from time 1 to time 2) of each child is shown for the melody/rhythm test at the peak voxel in the right primary auditory area (b).