孩提時期的音樂訓練可提高腦力

Music lessons in early childhood lead to changes in the brain that could improve its performance far into adulthood, researchers say.

Brain scans of young adults revealed that those who had formal musical training before the age of seven had thicker brain regions that deal with hearing and self-awareness.

The findings highlight how brain development can be influenced by the age that children start to learn a musical instrument, and how those changes can persist into later life.

"Early musical training does more good for kids than just making it easier for them to enjoy music. It changes the brain and these brain changes could lead to cognitive advances as well," said Yunxin Wang of Beijing Normal University.

"Our results suggest it might be better to start musical training before age seven, which is consistent with what most piano teachers recommend," she added.

Wang devised the study to investigate whether musical training early on in life had any lasting effect on the structure of the brain. She hoped the results might help parents decide when was best for their children to learn an instrument.

The brain's cortex plays a leading role in scores of crucial abilities, from thought and language to memory and attention. The region matures rapidly in the early years of life, and its development could be affected more if a person started musical training before it fully matured.

Wang studied 48 Han Chinese aged between 19 and 21 who had received formal music training for at least a year sometime between the ages of three and 15. Each had a magnetic resonance scan to measure the thickness of the cortex and the volume of grey matter in their brains.

After taking gender and the number of years spent having music lessons into account, Wang found that musical training that started before the age of seven appeared to thicken areas of the brain involved in language skills and executive function, which is a person's ability to plan and carry out tasks. She presented the results at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

"We're not sure why these changes arise, but a reasonable explanation is that early starters might rely more on auditory clues during learning music, since it might be more difficult for younger children to read music," Wang said.

The findings build on earlier work that suggests musical training before the age of seven can have a significant impact on the brain's development. Earlier this year, researchers at Concordia University in Montreal showed that people who took music lessons before seven years old had stronger connections between motor regions of the brain, which are involved in making movements, and the sensory areas.

Wang hopes to look at whether the age people start musical training has any meaningful impact on their cognitive skills as an adult, and on the rate at which their brain function declines with age. "As we know the brain is the executive organ of our mind, these changes might possibly reduce the ageing of the auditory system," she said.研究者稱，兒童早期的音樂訓練可以提高成年時的腦力。

對青少年的大腦掃描表明，在七歲之前有過正規音樂訓練的人，處理聽力與自我意識的大腦區域會相對更厚。

這一發現強調，孩提時期的樂器學習如何對大腦發展產生影響以及這些影響是如何在日後生活中延續的。

“早期的音樂訓練比讓孩子單純地欣賞音樂更有好處。音樂訓練可以改變改變大腦，這些改變又帶來認知研究進展，”北京師範大學的王雲馨（音）說道。

她補充道，“這個結果表明，孩子在七歲之前進行音樂訓練比較好，許多鋼琴老師也是這樣建議的。”

王設計了一項研究，調查早期的音樂訓練是否對大腦結構有持續的影響。她希望研究結果可以幫助父母瞭解何時開始學習樂器對孩子是最好的。

大腦皮質對思考與表達、記憶與注意力的能力而言具有決定性作用。這個區域在幼年迅速成熟，但是如果在其還未完全成熟時進行音樂訓練，對大腦皮質的發展具有重要影響。

王對48個19-21歲並在其3-15歲進行過至少一年音樂訓練的漢族學生進行了調查，通過對每個學生進行磁共振掃描來測量皮質厚度和大腦中的灰質體積。

在將性別與音樂訓練的年限納入考慮因素後，王發現七歲之前有進行過音樂訓練的人在語言能力和計劃與執行能力方面的大腦區域更厚，執行能力主要涉及制定計劃和完成任務。她在聖地亞哥的神經系統科學學會年會上展示了這一結果。

“我們還不知道爲什麼會發生這種變化，但是一個合理的解釋可能是，幼年學習音樂的兒童在學習過程中，會把注意力集中在聽覺線索上，因爲解讀音樂對他們來說實在太難。”

這個發現建立在今年初的研究基礎之上，本年初的研究發現，七歲之前的音樂培訓對大腦發展具有重要意義。其中，蒙特利爾的康考迪亞大學的研究者發現，在七歲之前參加音樂課程的人的大腦運動區域之間有更強的聯繫，包括運動區和感覺區。

王表示，她希望可以觀察早期的音樂訓練對成年人的認知能力是否有影響，以及在什麼年齡段大腦機能開始衰退。“就我們所知，大腦是思想的執行者，這些變化可能會減緩聽覺系統的老化。”王說道。