Ever catch yourself vividly reliving a memory that was triggered by a song? The power of music is so strong that it creates deep neural connections in our brains, especially during the earlier stages of our lives.<\/p>\n
Music can help people with damaged memory recall some events from their past. This is most useful for people suffering from Alzheimer\u2019s disease and dementia.<\/p>\n
Playing a musical instrument can improve your memory as well. In this article, we\u2019re going to discuss these topics and show you the major benefits that music can bring to your memory.<\/p>\n
Petr Janata, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, conducted a study about the connection between music and our deepest memories.<\/p>\n
Since the brain is both a perceptive and associative organ, it creates links between our senses and the stimuli, which are then processed and stored in our long-term and short-term memory.<\/p>\n
Music – especially our favorite music – has a positive effect on people and emotions. This is why some of the most deep-rooted memories that we have are associated with music.<\/p>\n
Professor Janata selected a group of people and exposed them to 30 songs. Then he tracked what was happening in their brains while they were listening to that music. The special condition he chose was that the songs had to be popular in the period when the subjects were 8-18 years old.<\/p>\n
With the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging, professor Janata discovered that the neural activity in the upper medial pre-frontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for keeping and retrieving long-term memories) was stronger as they were listening to those songs<\/a>. Now it\u2019s clear that the process of linking emotions, memories, and music happens here as well.<\/p>\n Playing a musical instrument has a positive effect on emotional and cognitive development, and that\u2019s something we\u2019ve known for ages. But to take that even further, neuropsychologists today claim that playing an instrument not only improves the area of memory related to music, but it also has a positive effect on memory in general.<\/p>\n In line with that, neuropsychologist Catherine Loveday from the University of Westminster expresses her theory that no other mental stimulus triggers brain development as powerfully as music<\/a>. The parts of the brain that benefit most from playing a musical instrument are working memory and the center for speech and language.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, musical training increases the amount of grey matter in the brain, and deepens the links between the right and left hemispheres.<\/p>\n Also, people who might have genetic predispositions for hearing issues as they age can potentially slow down the progress of these problems if they study a musical instrument.<\/p>\nPlaying music enhances memory and cognition<\/strong><\/h3>\n