The Effect of Music on Children’sBrain and Cognitive Development

Gottfried Schlaug & Ellen Winner

Dept. of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School

Dept. of Psychology, Boston College

and Harvard Graduate School of Education

HARVARDMEDICAL

SCHOOL

BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER

3 Questions Does music learning cause structural changes

in children’s brains?

Does music learning lead to improvement in

children’s spatial thinking and in mathematics?

Is improvement in spatial and/or math reasoning

related to brain changes?

Musicians’ brains are different

Corpus Callosum

Your Brain on Music

Is it Nature, Nurture, or both? A longitudinal study is the only way to find

out.

We need to study children before they begin and while they are learning music.

We will compare groups of children learning music at varying levels of time commitment.

The Mozart Effect

Previous studies have shown that after listening to the music of Mozart, adults score higher on spatial tasks like this paper folding test.

However, this effect is

short lived.

But other studies have shown that music training has positive,

long-term effects on children’s cognition.

This 3-year study will measure those effects in three ways:

• annual cognitive, math & music testing

• journal of activities

• annual non-invasive MRI scan

Wild claims have been made by the media but...

Object Assembly Test

...it is true

that children who study music solve puzzles of this kind better than those who have not studied music.

Math

Based on a small number of studies, there is also some evidence that children who

study music may improve in math.

Unanswered question:

When children improve in

spatial reasoning and in math,

are these improvements related to

structural brain changes?

?

Families who join our study agree to:

Annual cognitive, math and music testing at their child’s school, music school or at

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Annual non-invasive MRI scans at

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Keep a weekly record of child’s musical activities or instrumental practice and/or other extra-curricular activities

What is an MRI? Magnetic Resonance Imaging

MRI is non-invasive and completely safe. There is no radiation whatsoever.

The MRI will take about 20-30 minutes to complete both structural and functional scanning.

While they are in the scanner, children will listen and respond to music in segments of approximately 5 minutes each.

When they leave, children will be given a CD with images of their brain.

Why Participate?

• Find out how music learning affects your child’s development

• Track your child brain growth and cognitive development

• Help gather scientific evidence to support music in our schools

• Receive pictures of your child’s developing brain

• Receive a small stipend for your child each time s/he is scanned