Children who learn music while young can get a brain boost from musical instrument study and learning music.

Acco9rding to researchers, musical training can help developing brains, and reduce feelings of anxiety.  This helps children gain greater control of their emotions.  It also promotes stronger ability to focus attention.

Students Win a STEM Prize Grant For Their SchoolThe study was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.  According to the authors, the study is “the largest investigation of the association between playing a musical instrument and brain development.”

Professor of psychiatry Dr. James Hudziak  decided to investigate with his colleagues  whether the stimulation that occurs with musical training would have any effect on cortical thickening.

Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data to measure cortical thickening and thinning in areas of the brain that affect mental conditions such as anxiety, depression and attention disorders, even in children who had not been diagnosed with any particular mental disorder.  Researchers noticed changes in brain areas which direct mobility, as they had earlier predicted.

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