Art and science: how musical training shapes the brain

Abstract

What makes a musician? In this review, we discuss innate and experience-dependent factors that mold the musician brain in addition to presenting new data in children that indicate that some neural enhancements in musicians unfold with continued training over development. We begin by addressing effects of training on musical expertise, presenting neural, perceptual, and cognitive evidence to support the claim that musicians are shaped by their musical training regimes. For example, many musician-advantages in the neural encoding of sound, auditory perception, and auditory-cognitive skills correlate with their extent of musical training, are not observed in young children just initiating musical training, and differ based on the type of training pursued. Even amidst innate characteristics that contribute to the biological building blocks that make up the musician, musicians demonstrate further training-related enhancements through extensive education and practice. We conclude by reviewing evidence from neurobiological and epigenetic approaches to frame biological markers of musicianship in the context of interactions between genetic and experience-related factors.

Keywords: brain; cognition; musical training; neural plasticity; talent.

Figure 1

Emerging neural enhancements in the encoding of sound in preschool-aged musicians with continued musical training. Top: Representative auditory brainstem onset responses to /da/ in quiet and /da/ in noise for musician and non-musician participants who were tested initially and returned for testing after one year of continued musical training or alternative enrichment activities. Musicians have more resilient responses in noise after an additional year of musical training and development compared to non-musician counterparts (adapted from Strait et al., 2013b). Bottom: Preschool-aged musicians do not yet demonstrate the full “musician signature” enhancements seen in adults but aspects of enhanced neural encoding are beginning to emerge, as indicated by a + (Strait et al., , for review see Strait and Kraus, 2013).

Figure 2

Musical practice during childhood leads to more robust neural responses in adulthood. Top: Participants were divided into three groups based on amount of musical practice. The participant group with no musical training (black) had the smallest amplitudes (highest SNR) in the frequency-following subcortical response compared to groups with more 1–5 years of musical training (blue) and 6–11 years of training (red). Bottom: Response magnitudes correlated with how recently musical training had ceased (adapted from Skoe and Kraus, 2012). ^**p < 0.01.

Figure 3

Musician subjects demonstrate enhanced subcortical encoding (bottom waveform) to the complex portion of an emotional communication sound—a baby's cry (top waveform, see boxes dividing stimulus into simple and complex portions). Subcortical response magnitude in response to the complex portion correlates with years of musical training (adapted from Strait et al., 2009).

Figure 4

Timbre specialization among musicians. Adult pianists' auditory brainstem responses more closely reflect the amplitude envelope of the piano stimulus than non-pianists' (F = 6.97, p < 0.01), demonstrating preferential encoding for the sound of their instrument of practice (adapted from Strait et al., 2012a). Child pianists do not demonstrate preferential encoding of their instrument compared to non-pianists (F = 0.04, p = 0.85), perhaps indicating insufficient musical training to support specialization.