Science

Scientists uncover further evidence that the brain may play a role in learning.

Next they will investigate whether learning piano has any association with finger movement.

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Learning to play the piano causes complex changes in brain activity that shift over time. Initially, areas of the brain associated with memory, integrating sensory information and processing movement become highly activated, but this lessens as learners become more musically proficient.

Previous studies have looked into the reorganisation of someone’s brain activity while they are playing an instrument, but these have generally been short and based on only one scan.

To learn more about this process, Alicja Olszewska at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Poland and her colleagues studied 24 people as they learned to play the piano over 26 weeks. This involved a teacher showing them basic techniques, as well as coaching them through eight increasingly complex pieces of music, during 13 45-minute classes. The participants were also encouraged to practise at home for 4 hours a week.

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After one, six, 13 and 26 weeks of training, the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the participants’ brains as they attempted to play the increasingly complex pieces.

The scans showed that playing the piano activates multiple areas across the brain, including the auditory cortices that are involved in processing sounds and the motor cortices involved in planning and executing movements.

Over the 26 weeks, activity changed little in the auditory cortices, but it generally decreased in the motor cortices. A reduction in brain activity represents its optimisation, which would be expected as the participants’ piano-playing skills progressed, says Olszewska.

The scans also revealed that learning to play the piano initially activates other areas of the brain, including the cerebellum, which coordinates movement, and parts of the parietal cortex, which integrate different types of sensory information. The researchers also found increased activation in the hippocampus, involved in memory, and the basal ganglia, a set of deep brain structures involved in initiating and controlling voluntary movements.

Activity in these areas similarly decreased as the participants’ training progressed. This suggests their underlying neural processes became increasingly optimised alongside improvements in their musical proficiency, says Olszewska.

There are several different ideas about how learning an instrument changes brain activity. According to the “expansion and renormalisation” concept, such training causes grey matter volume to first increase and then decrease as musical proficiency improves. Another explanation states that separate neural pathways that process information side-by-side contribute to people simultaneously learning the right order of the movements required when playing an instrument, along with their timing, speed and force.

Reference:

bioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.15.575623