We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. To learn more, click here. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies. Cookie Policy.

Features Partner Sites Information LinkXpress
Sign In
Advertise with Us
GLOBETECH PUBLISHING LLC

Download Mobile App




Study Shows Learning Tasks with Music Can Change Brain Structure

By MedImaging International staff writers
Posted on 19 Jul 2017
Print article
Researchers have shown that people who practiced basic movement tasks while listening to music showed increased structural connectivity in white matter pathways in parts of the brain.

The researchers found that those brain regions associated with sound and control movement processing had improved structural connections as a result of the therapy.

The findings were published online in the August 2017 issue of the journal Brain & Cognition by researchers from the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, Scotland) and could be used for research into motor rehabilitation of patients with a disability, after a stroke for example.

The study included 30 right-handed volunteers. They were split into two groups and were asked to learn a new physical task involving sequences of finger movements, with their left non-dominant hand. One group learned the task without music, while the second group learned it with musical cues. The researchers found that both groups learned the sequences equally well after 4 weeks of practice.

The researchers then used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to scan the volunteers’ brains. The scans showed that there was a significant increase in white-matter connectivity in the group working with music as opposed to the group working without music that showed no change.

Research team leader Dr. Katie Overy, said, "The study suggests that music makes a key difference. We have long known that music encourages people to move. This study provides the first experimental evidence that adding musical cues to learning new motor task can lead to changes in white matter structure in the brain."

Related Links:
University of Edinburgh

Gold Member
Solid State Kv/Dose Multi-Sensor
AGMS-DM+
Ultrasound System
P25 Elite
New
Silver Member
Mobile X-Ray Barrier
Lead Acrylic Mobile X-Ray Barriers
New
Ultrasound System
Acclarix AX9

Print article

Channels

Ultrasound

view channel
Image: Structure of the proposed transparent ultrasound transducer and its optical transmittance (Photo courtesy of POSTECH)

Ultrasensitive Broadband Transparent Ultrasound Transducer Enhances Medical Diagnosis

The ultrasound-photoacoustic dual-modal imaging system combines molecular imaging contrast with ultrasound imaging. It can display molecular and structural details inside the body in real time without... Read more

Nuclear Medicine

view channel
Image: PET/CT of a 60-year-old male patient with clinical suspicion of lung cancer (Photo courtesy of EJNMMI Physics)

Early 30-Minute Dynamic FDG-PET Acquisition Could Halve Lung Scan Times

F-18 FDG-PET scans are a way to look inside the body using a special dye, and these scans can be either static or dynamic. Static scans happen 60 minutes after the dye is administered into the body, showing... Read more

Imaging IT

view channel
Image: The new Medical Imaging Suite makes healthcare imaging data more accessible, interoperable and useful (Photo courtesy of Google Cloud)

New Google Cloud Medical Imaging Suite Makes Imaging Healthcare Data More Accessible

Medical imaging is a critical tool used to diagnose patients, and there are billions of medical images scanned globally each year. Imaging data accounts for about 90% of all healthcare data1 and, until... Read more

Industry News

view channel
Image: The acquisition will expand IBA’s medical imaging quality assurance offering (Photo courtesy of Radcal)

IBA Acquires Radcal to Expand Medical Imaging Quality Assurance Offering

Ion Beam Applications S.A. (IBA, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium), the global leader in particle accelerator technology and a world-leading provider of dosimetry and quality assurance (QA) solutions, has entered... Read more
Copyright © 2000-2024 Globetech Media. All rights reserved.