Music has a powerful effect on our brain plasticity: 

 Five significant benefits of improving your brain plasticity.

Helps you learn new things. ...Helps with depression. ...Helps you engage in activities more thoughtfully. ...Aids recovery from strokes and other traumatic brain injuries. ...Increases brain volume and memory.

Let's discover why listening and engaging with music provides a space for our memory, brain volume, moods and brain plasticity to grow and enhance over time. 


The following is an excerpt from: Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science > Vol.10 No.1, January 2020 The Positive Influence of Music on the Human Brain

Shiqi Zhang
Ashley Hall, Charleston, SC, USA.

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=98060 

3.1. Brain Plasticity

Music, as an important form of artistic expression, has long been a part of art research. In recent years, with the rapid development of brain imaging technologies such as event-related potential (ERP), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), music has gradually been incorporated into cognitive neuroscience. Brain plasticity means that the brain can be modified by the environment and experience, and has the ability to shape the structure and function of the brain under the influence of the external environment and experience.

Animal experiments have found that music can promote brain development in rats and mice, enhance nerve plasticity, and improve their spatial learning and memory. The auditory cortex NMDA receptor is a vital neural connective pathway in mammalian learning and memory processes, including humans. After listening to Mozart’s “Big Piano Sonata”, the expression of NMDA subunit NR2B protein in 2 weeks old mice increased significantly, and the spatial memory ability increased accordingly. In addition, the improvement of memory ability depends on the length of music stimulation time and is related to the up-regulation of NMDA receptor expression in hippocampal formation [8]. The University of California, Berkeley, Diamond, and others have performed a series of well-known experiments in white mice. The results showed that the thickness of the gray matter of white rats in the living environment increased, and the proportion of the cortex in the whole brain increased, and each nerve cell increased by 15%. The study also found that white mice living in a rich environment were 25% more connected than white mice in the normal environment, and they performed better in the test. More importantly, Greenough also found that when the adult mouse responds to a complex environment, the brain also forms new synapses.

Related experiments have also shown that after special training, brain-related cortical representations can change significantly. This shows that the cortical representation area of feeling, movement, language, cognition, etc. is not fixed, but a dynamic structure. Experience or training can reorganize the fine structure of the representative area. This empirically dependent structural reorganization can be used to explain why people or animals learn certain intelligence and motor skills [9].

3.2. The Influence of Music on Brain Plasticity

As we all know, music is the sound art that shapes the artistic image through sound. Whether it is the listening and feeling of various factors such as pitch, tone, rhythm, harmony and melody, or integrating these elements into a complete piece for performance. The auditory cortex in the individual brain plays an important role in monitoring and recognizing, and thus involves complex brain activities such as sound analysis, auditory memory, and auditory scene analysis [10] [11].

Christo Pantev’s research (1998) in Master University shows that musicians are particularly sensitive to piano sounds, mainly because their auditory cortical activity area is significantly enhanced when they hear piano sounds. Those who learn instrumental music before the age of 9 have the largest area of auditory cortex activity, but ordinary people do not have such significant changes [12]. Thomas Elbert (1995) of Konstanz University in Germany reported that the cortical region of the left-handed activity of string players (average age 20 years) is larger than the average person, and the younger the learning instrument is, the more relevant. The area of the cortex is also larger. A comparative study of musicians and non-musicians by Schlaug et al. (1995) found that the left side of the musician’s traverse is significantly larger than the right side, and the traverse is the area in the human brain that processes auditory information. Although the left side of the non-musician cross is larger than the right side, the difference is small, but the difference between musicians is twice that of non-musicians. Schlaug also found that musicians have an average cerebellum that is 5% larger than non-musicians. This shows that finger movement for many years promotes additional nerve growth [13].

The brain is a special structure developed by human beings to adapt to the needs of survival. Its main task is to collect information about the internal and external environment of the body, and to process the information specifically to make decisions and responses that are suitable for the environment and for survival [14]. Music can enhance the interrelationship between EEG signals in each channel and build a network of brain functions, which can significantly improve the activity of the brain.

2.3. Enhance Memory

As early as the 1960s, Bulgarian Lozanov created the “implicit learning method”. He believed that soothing and beautiful classical music can help ease emotional tension, improve concentration, and learn more efficiently [6]. Some scholars believe that musical stimuli generate additional information that interferes with attention, affecting people’s memory efficiency [7]. In the past ten years, scientists have extensively explored the relationship between music and memory.

For the molecular biological basis of music affecting memory, researchers believe that music stimulation can change the secretion of some neurotransmitters and peptide hormones, thereby enhancing people’s memory. Recent studies have found that the secretion of vasopressin AVP (4 - 8) is significantly increased when the music is felt. It can significantly activate the protein kinase MAPK, which significantly increases the transcription level of the “immediate early gene” c-fos, while c-fos It has a crucial influence on synaptic differentiation and learning and memory [4]. Wang Zengxian et al. (2004) found that music enhances neuronal NMDA receptors and mRNA expression of NMDA receptors [7]; NMDA is one of the most critical proteins for long-term effect (LTP) induction, in the hippocampal neural pathway, NMDA receptors play an important role in the triggering of LTP [8].

5. Conclusion

Looking back at the past research work, we strongly felt that the relationship between music and the brain has become a frontier field in the study of brain science and music psychology [9]. Undoubtedly, the influence of music on the human brain can be objectively determined by scientific means. Music training has outstanding effects on human brain development as well as cognitive and memory development. Music therapy can reduce the patient’s anxiety level, thereby improving mood and reducing the response to psychological depression. It is widely used in the modern medical field to treat diseases such as stroke depression [20]. In addition, music training also shows significant effect on memory enhancement in a clear molecular level. These studies have further deepened people’s understanding of the value of music education, and made music education show more in the broader development of human development and human potential.