Thanks to the arrival of electronic gadgets in brain research, we are now able to appreciate how the brain operates when it encounters music. Such neurologic music studies have now endorsed the relevance and importance of music in day-to-day human living.
Recent research conducted by neuro-psychologists such as James Gaidiner and Javan Horwitz have endorsed the view that frontal lobes of the human brain operate actively in producing and understanding music. In a recent conference (November, 2008), a paper presented by them in a conference organized by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), the functions of the frontal lobes have been identified as indicated below:
| Part of the Frontal Lobes | Association |
| Left frontal premotor (along with left ‘Parietal and right cerebellum) | Rhythm and pitch |
| Right frontal (along with temporal) | Pitch and melody |
| Medial (middle) frontal lobes | Spontaneity in performance |
| Inferior (lower) frontal lobes | Detecting deviations from expectations in harmonies |
| Ventromedial (front and middle) prefrontal cortex | Taking musical decisions |
| Dorsolateral (back and side) frontal lobes Orbitofrontal (undersurface) area | Initiation and execution of music (singing) Socially appropriate behaviour in performance |
| Bilateral prefrontal lobes | Working memory for words and melody in a song |
| Basal (the base) forebrain | Motivation and emotion for the music |
| Right motor strip | Controls left-side limbs (arm, hand, leg and foot) while one plays instruments |
| Left motor strip | Controls right-side limbs while playing instruments |
Music for Brain Development
Studies of musicians have extended many of the findings noted above. All these studies confirm the brain’s ability to revise its wiring in support of musical activities. Just as some training increases the number of cells that respond to a sound when it becomes important, prolonged learning produces more marked responses and physical changes in the brain. Musicians, who usually practice music many hours a day for years together have been found to show such effects–their responses to music differ from those of non-musicians; they also exhibit hyper development of certain areas in their brains.
Christo Pantev led one such study in Germany in the year 1998. He found that when musicians listen to a piano playing, about a quarter more of their left-hemi-sphere auditory regions respond than do so in non-musicians. This effect is specific to musical tones and does not occur with similar but non-musical sounds. Moreover, it was found that this expansion of response area is greater the younger the age at which lessons began.
Studies of children suggest that early musical experience may facilitate brain development in them. In 2004, in yet an-other study, Antoine Shahin, Larry E. Roberts and Laurel J. Trainor in: Ontario (Canada) also recorded brain responses to piano, violin and pure tones in four and five-year-old children. It was found that children who had received greater exposure to music in their homes showed enhanced brain activity, as compared to that of unexposed ones.
Musicians may display greater responses to sounds, in part because their auditory cortex is more extensive. Peter Schneider and his co-workers in Germany reported in 2002 that the volume of this cortex in musicians was 130% larger. The percentages of volume increase were linked to levels of musical training, suggesting that learning music proportionally increases the number of neurons that process it.
In addition, musicians’ brains devote more area toward motor control of the fingers used to play an instrument. In 1995 Thomas Elbert and his colleagues from Germany reported that the brain regions that receive sensory inputs from the second to fifth (index to pinkie) fingers of the left hand were significantly larger in violinists; these are precisely the fingers used to make rapid and complex movements in violin playing. In contrast, they observed no enlargement of the areas of the cortex that handle inputs from the right hand, which controls the bow and requires no special finger movements. Non-musicians do not exhibit these differences. Pantev (2001) also observed that the brains of professional trumpet players react in such an intensified manner only to the sound of a trumpet–not, for example) that of a violin.
Musicians also must develop greater ability to use both hands, particularly for keyboard playing. Thus, one might expect that this increased coordination between the motor regions of the two hemispheres has an anatomical substrate. That seems to be the case. The anterior corpus callosum, which contains the band of fibers that interconnects the two motor areas, is larger in musicians than in non-musicians. Again, the extent of increase is greater the earlier the music lessons began. Other studies suggest that the actual size of the motor cortex, as well as that of the cerebellum–a region at the back of the brain involved in motor coordination–is greater in musicians.
Musical Executive Function Training According to James Gardiner and Javan Horwitz, neurologic music therapy interventions have contributed towards various functions which include vision, motivation, creativity, goal setting, planning, organization, initiation, inhibition, mental flexibility, decision-making, problem-solving and resilience. Don’t we know that these qualities are more essential for our executives and managers who are involved in complex decision-making jobs, crowded with a set of needs and facts? In a way, music should be part of our leading business schools and music training should be there for our MBA graduates along with finance and human relations as a part of the curriculum.
This article was published in My Doctor – January 2009 – Pages 45 to 47
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, August 3, 2021