How music can boost connections in our brain
Like language, music challenges our brains. Image: REUTERS/Chris Helgren
- Learning music can help grow and enhance connections in the brain.
- These could help build cognitive function and potentially stave of conditions like dementia.
- It's thought music could play a similar role as language.
Music soothes, energizes and inspires. It also fortifies pathways in your brain that neurologists say can lead to a better understanding of cognition and dementia.
To help better understand how music strengthens the brain, Dr. Bernard Bendok, chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, explains how music strikes a chord with researchers in this Mayo Clinic Minute.
“One of the higher functions that a human brain can engage with is the performance of music,” says Bendok.
“As you master those instruments, there are certain connections that grow and get enhanced in the brain. The brain likes to be challenged. We know that the more languages you know, the less your risk of dementia. And music happens to be a language.”
“Understanding music allows neurologists and neurosurgeons and neuroscientists to better understand the brain,” continues Bendok.
“It’s a great way to better map the brain, both for enhancing the safety of surgery, but also for exploring new avenues for new therapies for various conditions of the human brain, including degenerative diseases and memory problems.
By understanding these pathways that contribute to musical memory and cognitive memory, this will allow us to solve the problems of degeneration like dementia, but also open new opportunities to enhance function.”
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Stay up to date:
Neuroscience
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.