Musicians develop more brainpower

by Nick Nuttall

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Skilled musicians have an area of the brain that is up to 25 per cent larger than those who have never played an instrument, research has shown. The region is part of the cortex where nerve cells group according to pitch, much like notes on a piano's keyboard are arranged in ascending order. The researchers at the University of Munster in Germany have been imaging these "tonotopic maps" in musicians and non-musicians as they listen to a series of notes. They found that, in the most experienced players, the area stimulated was up to a quarter larger than in non-musicians. The scientists also found that musicians who began playing aged nine or younger had the largest tonotopic maps as adults.

The findings, published in Nature, have been made by a team at the university led by Christo Pantev. They studied 20 musicians, some of who had perfect of instinctive pitch and others who had relative pitch. The musicians had been playing for between 13 and 23 years. Nine said the piano was their primary instrument and 11 said strings or woodwind. A group who had never played were also screened. No difference was found between those with perfect pitch and those with relative or learned pitch. The researchers believe that it is not just an area of the cortex that is enlarged in musicians. The team previously pinpointed that the planum temporale of the left hemisphere was also bigger.

Taken from The Times, 23 April 1998

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