University of Geneva researchers have found that practicing and listening to music can alter cognitive decline in healthy older adults by stimulating the production of grey matter. The researchers followed 132 healthy retirees ages 62 to 78. One of the conditions for study participation was that they had not taken any music lessons for more than six months in their lives.

The brain changes when we learn new skills or overcome the consequences of a stroke, for example. However, with age, this "brain plasticity" decreases and the brain also loses gray matter (brain atrophy), in regions where thinking occurs.

Working memory, at the core of many cognitive processes, is one of the functions that declines most. Working memory is defined as the process in which we briefly retain and manipulate information in order to achieve a goal, such as remembering a telephone number long enough to write it down or translating a sentence from a foreign language.

The study showed that both music practice and active listening could prevent working memory decline and promote brain plasticity, and were associated with grey matter volume increase.

For the study, participants were randomly assigned to two groups: one took piano lessons and the other had active listening lessons, which focused on instrument recognition and analysis of musical properties in range of musical styles. Classes lasted one hour and participants were required to do homework for half an hour a day.

"After six months, we found common effects for both interventions," said coauthor Clara James. "Neuroimaging revealed an increase in grey matter in four brain regions involved in high-level cognitive functioning in all participants, including cerebellum areas involved in working memory. Their performance increased by 6% and this result was directly correlated to the plasticity of the cerebellum."

The quality of sleep, the number of lessons followed over the course of the intervention, and the daily training quantity, all had a positive impact on the degree of improvement in performance.

Notably, however, among the pianists, the volume of grey matter remained stable in the right primary auditory cortex -- a key region for sound processing -- whereas it decreased in the active listening group.

The results "open new prospects for the support of healthy aging," according to the researchers.

To download the full study, published in Neuroimage: Reports, click here