Music Intervention Increases Gray Matter Volume and Verbal Working Memory in Older Adults

by | May 23, 2023 | 2023, Aging, Alternative Therapies, Brain Health, Cognitive Health

Written by Taylor Woosley, Staff Writer. Analysis of 132 healthy older adults in both the piano and musical culture group revealed a widespread pattern of positive GM volume changes over 6 months (p < 0.001) in the neocortex, subcortical structures, and in the cerebellum. 

elderly woman with caregiverAdvanced age is associated with increased mortality and susceptibility to disease, and this increase is caused by a progressive decline in physiological function1. With greater life expectancy, many more people will attain older ages, and because the risk of dementia increases with increasing age, they will be predisposed to the risk of cognitive impairment2. In a 2016 report from the Alzheimer’s Association, an estimated 5.4 million people had dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease and that number was projected to reach 13.8 million by 20503.

Microglial macrophages in the brain become chronically activated during aging to promote sustained production of pro-inflammatory cytokines which can perpetuate a cycle of neuroinflammatory processes leading to neurodegeneration4. Music has the capacity to engage auditory, cognitive, motor, and emotional functions across cortical and subcortical brain regions and is relatively preserved in aging and dementia5. Long-term musical training and learning of associated skills can be a strong stimulus for neuroplastic changes, in both the developing brain and the adult brain6.

Marie et al. conducted a randomized controlled study to evaluate brain and behavioral changes in healthy older adults after 6 months of music interventions. 132 musically naïve healthy older adults completed the study and were divided into two groups: experimental group: piano, n = 66 and the active control group: musical culture, n = 66. Inclusion criteria consisted of overall good physical/mental health, righthandedness, retired, non-reliance on hearing aids, and less than 6 months of formal musical training over the lifespan. Global cognitive functioning was evaluated using the Cognitive Telephone Screening Instrument (COGTEL) which assesses verbal short- and long-term memory, working memory (WM), verbal fluency, inductive reasoning, and prospective memory. Subjects received 12 months of intervention of 1-h weekly music training which included reading a musical score and practicing rhythm exercises. Additionally, participants partook in musical culture (MC) lessons in groups of 4-6 which included analytical music listening.

Data was obtained at baseline (T0), 6 months (T1), 12 months (T2), and 18 months (T3) i.e., 6 months post-intervention which included psychometric testing on cognitive and perceptual-motor aptitudes as well as wide-ranging functional and structural neuroimaging and blood sampling. Psychometric testing included 15 tests covering different cognitive and sensorimotor domains, along with questionnaires about quality of life and physical activity. Subject’s average sleep duration in hours was inventoried at baseline. Furthermore, subjects performed a tonal WM task in the MRI scanner to analyze tonal WM networks as part of the functional MRI session, which included three conditions that alternated randomly with different WM loads. Verbal WM was assessed using the Digit Span task.

Image difference contrasts between timepoints were generated for each subject using the ImCalc function of SPM, with images then being used as input for whole-brain statistics. Shapiro-Wilks tests were used to evaluate normality and statistical testing was performed using an unpaired two-sample Wilcoxon test for Age, a two-sample independent t-test for COGTEL score, and chi-squared tests for gender and education. A 2×2 repeated-measure ANCOVA model was performed to evaluate whether a significant improvement in tonal WM performance over time occurred. Significant findings of the study are as follows:

  • Analysis of GM volume revealed a widespread pattern of positive GM volume changes over 6 months in all participants (p < 0.001) in the neocortex, subcortical structures, and in the cerebellum. Four clusters are significant after multiple comparison corrections (p < 0.05).
  • The repeated-measure 2×2 ANCOVA model detected a significant effect of Time (p = 0.02). A significant 5.7% raw gain of tonal WM performance over 6 months was observed in all participants, both groups combined (p = 0.001).
  • Group effects showed a significant difference in GM plasticity in favor of the piano group. While the right TE1.0 GM volume stayed stable over 6 months in the piano group, the right TE1.0 GM volume decreased in the MC group.

Results of the study show that GM volume increased in the left and right cerebellum in both groups after 6 months of piano and music sensitization lessons. Furthermore, training intensity and average sleep duration were also positively associated with a significant gain in tonal WM performance after 6 months of intervention.

Source: Marie, Damien, Cécile AH Müller, Eckart Altenmüller, Dimitri Van De Ville, Kristin Jünemann, Daniel S. Scholz, Tillmann HC Krüger et al. “Music interventions in 132 healthy older adults enhance cerebellar grey matter and auditory working memory, despite general brain atrophy.” Neuroimage: Reports 3, no. 2 (2023): 100166.

© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Posted May 23, 2023.

Taylor Woosley studied biology at Purdue University before becoming a 2016 graduate of Columbia College Chicago with a major in Writing. She currently resides in Glen Ellyn, IL.

References:

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