Could Playing Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” and Other Music Improve Kids’ Brains? As children age, the cortex – the outer layer of the brain – changes in thickness. In previous analysis of MRI data, Hudziak and his team discovered that cortical thickening or thinning in specific areas of the brain reflected the occurrence of anxiety and depression, attention problems, aggression and behavior control issues even in healthy kids – those without a diagnosis of a disorder or mental illness. With this study, Hudziak wanted to see whether a positive activity, such as music training, would influence those indicators in the cortex. The study supports The Vermont Family Based Approach, a model Hudziak created to establish that the entirety of a young person’s environment – parents, teachers, friends, pets, extracurricular activities – contributes to his or her psychological health. “Music is a critical component in my model,” Hudziak says. The authors found evidence they expected – that music playing altered the motor areas of the brain, because the activity requires control and coordination of movement. Even more important to Hudziak were changes in the behavior-regulating areas of the brain. For example, music practice influenced thickness in the part of the cortex that relates to “executive functioning, including working memory, attentional control, as well as organization and planning for the future,” the authors write. A child’s musical background also appears to correlate with cortical thickness in “brain areas that play a critical role in inhibitory control, as well as aspects of emotion processing.” The findings bolster Hudziak’s hypothesis that a violin might help a child battle psychological disorders even better than a bottle of pills. “We treat things that result from negative things, but we never try to use positive things as treatment,” he says. Click the link for more. uvm.edu/medicine/?Page=news&storyID=19874&category=comresne
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 10:22:09 +0000
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