Musical training may benefit your brain by increasing blood flow to the left side of the brain. According to the study, increased blood flow was found after only 30 minutes of music training. Study author Amy Spray, with the University of Liverpool, explained in a university news release, “The areas of our brain that process music and language are thought to be shared, and previous research has suggested that musical training can lead to the increased use of the left hemisphere of the brain.”
“It was fascinating to see that the similarities in blood flow signatures could be brought about after just half an hour of simple musical training,” said Spray. Researchers studied the brain activity in people who took part in music, word generation tasks and listened to music. They found that the blood flow was the same for all groups. Increased blood flow was not seen in non-musicians, however, once musical training was introduced, researchers found that blood flow patterns changed to be similar to musicians in both musical and word generation tasks, according to the study.
The findings were only presented and should be thought of as preliminary until published in a peer reviewed journal.
Resource: http://www.everydayhealth.com/news/music-may-benefit-your-brain/
