Researchers have found a link between learning a musical instrument in youth and improved thinking skills in old age. People with more experience playing a musical instrument showed greater lifetime improvement on a cognitive ability test than those with less or no experience, according to a publication from the University of Edinburgh. The researchers found that this was the case even after taking into account their socioeconomic status, years of education, childhood cognitive ability and health in older age. But emeritus professor Ian Deary, former director of the Center for Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Epidemiology at the university, said: “We have to stress that the relationship we found between playing instruments and lifetime cognitive improvement was small and we cannot prove it the first caused the second. “However, as we and others look for the many small effects that may contribute to some people’s brains aging more healthily than others, these results are worth watching.” Of the 366 study participants, 117 reported some experience of playing a musical instrument – mostly during childhood and adolescence. The most commonly played instrument was the piano, but many other instruments were also played, including the accordion, bagpipes, guitar, and violin. The study participants were part of the ‘Lothian Birth Cohort 1936’ – a group of people from Edinburgh and the Lothians, born in 1936, who took part in the 1947 Scottish Mental Survey. The subjects were tested on a range of physical and mental functions as they grew older, including a repeat of the standardized cognitive ability test each took as an 11-year-old, which included questions requiring verbal reasoning, spatial awareness and numerical analysis. Cohort members who had retaken the test at age 70 were asked about their lifetime musical experiences by researchers who wanted to find out if musical experience was associated with healthy aging. In the study, the team used statistical models to look for correlations between a person’s experience playing a musical instrument and changes in their thinking skills between the ages of 11 and 70. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The university said the findings provided new evidence that playing an instrument is associated with small but detectable lifelong cognitive benefits. Judith Okely, now a lecturer in psychology at Napier University, said: “These results add to the evidence that activities that are intellectually challenging, such as learning a musical instrument, can be associated with better thinking skills.” Katie Overy, senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh’s Reid School of Music, said: “Music has so much to offer as a fun, social activity – it’s exciting to discover that learning a musical instrument can also contribute to healthy cognitive ageing. .” The study was funded by Age UK and the Economic and Social Research Council and was published in the journal Psychological Science.
