We have all heard the saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. But what if our previous notions about the incredible plasticity of the brain were not limited to when we are young children. What if there were ways we could prevent or even reverse the decline in function we see in the prefrontal, parietal and medial-temporal regions of the brain as we age? The areas that we associate with memory, attention, executive functioning, and inhibitory processes. None of us want to face the cognitive decline that comes with getting older. We do not want to lose our memory, our language comprehension, our ability to regulate our behavior. We are all aging, there is no way to prevent it. It is worth looking into ways to develop interventions to slow down, halt or even reverse these declines in cognitive function in older adults. What if it was as easy as learning a fun and valuable new skill? Interestingly, studies have shown a positive relationship between years of engagement in practicing a musical instrument and cognitive performance. Benefits such as enhanced verbal processing, spatial memory, intelligence, reading, inhibitory processing, auditory processing, and cognitive flexibility have been correlated with playing an instrument or even learning how to sing. This study aimed to tell us if there is not only a correlational relationship between musical training and visual art training but a causal relationship between these practices and actual neuroplastic changes in the brain, resulting in the observed enhancements.
The effects of both musical training (instruments, body percussion, voice, music theory, melody and harmony concepts) and visual art training (drawing and painting techniques and analysis of famous artworks – considered equally as engaging as musical training and serves to show if music effects are general or specific) were observed by subjecting adults of relatively the same age (mean age of 67.7 in musical group, 68.9 in visual art group and 68.5 in the control group), with a similar educational background, limited experience with art/music training and similar WASA-II scores (Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence) to different training programs. They were randomly assigned to be in the visual art training program, the music training program, or the no-contact control group (no formal training undergone during the three-month period). Those who were in a program had sessions for one hour, three days a week for three months, being taught by a professional.
The participants were tested pre-training, post-training and at a 3-month follow-up. ERPs (event-related potentials), using an EEG (electroencephalogram), were used to measure the possible neuroplastic changes in sensory processing and executive functions (inhibition) during various types of tests at each session in the lab (pre/post/follow-up). They do this by measuring the various types of wave forms. The N1 wave is a negative deflection (downward stoke on an EEG) that peaks 90-200msec after an unexpected stimulus (Shravani, 2009). The P2 wave is a positive deflection (upward stroke on an EEG) that peaks around 100-250msec after a stimulus (Shravani, 2009). These waves would be used to show “early visual cortical modulated processing” after training. The MMN (mismatch negativity/N2a) is a wave elicited by a change detected within a repetitive sequence of stimuli, representing the brains ability to process a difference or change automatically (Shravani, 2009). The MMN waves reflect the brain’s ability to “perform automatic comparisons between consecutive stimuli and provides index of sensory learning and perceptual accuracy” and is obtained by subtracting the standard event response from the deviant event response (Garrido, 2009).
These waves are especially useful in measuring brain activity during a variety of tests used in this experiment. One of these tests, the auditory oddball paradigm, measures the brains ability to recognize a novel sound among a repeated sequence of the same sound. In this experiment, both a standard (the familiar sound repeated in sequence) and deviant (different than standard) piano tone as well as standard and a deviant vowel sound were used. ERPs were measured as they listened to see the brains response to the novel sound. Another test, the Go/No-Go task, measures a participants inhibition when asked to respond to one type of stimulus vs. another similar one appearing in sequence [such as in this experiment, clicking a certain color of shape (white) on a computer screen vs. not clicking a different colored shape (purple) when they appear intermittently on a black background]. The accuracy for the trials were recorded as well as the reaction times for the “go” trials. Another test used was the Stroop test, which measures processing speed and cognitive ability by getting a participant to name the color of the word printed, while that word is the name of a different color.
There were some notable results in the form of changes in brain activity as well as better performance on tests following the older adults’ visual arts and music training and some interesting interpretations were brought forth. For instance, the participants from the music group improved their reaction time/naming speed on the Stroop test vs. the other two groups and they maintained this ability at the 3-month follow-up. This could reflect an improvement in overall processing speed, which is important in facilitating learning, long term memory, comprehension and decision making. Brain activity changes were seen as well. In the testing of auditory processing (auditory oddball paradigm testing), there was an enhancement in the N1 and P2 amplitude after training in both the visual arts and the music groups, while no change was observed in the control group from pre-training test to the post-training test. Furthermore, In the testing of the visual processing after training, those who were in the visual arts training group showed more activity associated with early-attention related processing at the parietal-occipital regions, suggesting that visual art may improve processing from visual features. These changes were not observed in the music group or the control group. Also, when testing cognitive control (the Go/No-Go task), music group participants showed an increased P2 and decreased N2, whereas the visual arts group participants showed the opposite (lower P2 and a higher N2). P2 is thought to “index the representation of a current task and associated behavioral response in early processing” (Alain, et al., 2019) and the N2 acts as a “marker of inhibition and conflict detection/attention load” (Alain, et al., 2019). This suggested to the researchers that since participants that underwent visual art training had a decrease P2 and an increased N2 wave amplitude, that visual art training reduced perceptual demands of the Go/No-Go test (decreased amplitude of P2) and enhanced post-perceptual response inhibition (increased amplitude of N2). It is interesting to note there is some specificity between the two types of training and their relative effects on the brain.
These are just some of the small, yet significant changes observed in brain activity after the artistic/music training programs. However, they can, no matter how they are interpreted, at the very least provide evidence of a casual relationship between training in the visual arts and music and neuroplastic changes taking place in the brains of older adults. Therefore, we can see that the older brain is perhaps more plastic than we might have once thought. These findings provide hope for future interventions that might remedy cognitive decline we see as we age. These results are promising and suggest that engaging in artistic activities could allow one to not only improve, but potentially regain, essential abilities that were once thought to be inevitably lost forever.
Works cited
Alain, C., Moussard, A., Singer, J., Lee, Y. Bidelman, G., Moreno, S. (2019). “Music and Visual Art Training Modulate Brain Activity in Older Adults”. Frontiers in Neuroscience: Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience.
Garrido, M. I., Kilner, J. M., Stephan, K. E., & Friston, K. J. (2009). “The mismatch negativity: a review of underlying mechanisms”. Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology, 120(3), 453–463
Shravani, S., and Sinhal, V. K. (2009) “Event-related potential: an overview”. Ind. Psychiatry Journal.18(1): 70–73
