Music lovers, especially those who listen regularly, may be doing their brains a favor.
Researchers at Australia’s Monash University, analyzing data from nearly 11,000 participants who took part in a major longitudinal study, found that frequent music listeners were less likely than infrequent listeners to develop dementia.
“They also had a decreased risk of experiencing more general cognitive decline,” senior researcher Joanne Ryan, PhD, tells The Washington Post. “And we also found that in that time period, they performed better, consistently better, on the tasks of memory and also on a global cognitive function test.”
Those who played an instrument reaped similar benefits: a 35 percent lower risk of developing dementia.
Participants were 70 or older and cognitively healthy when they volunteered for the ASPREE Longitudinal Study of Older Persons. Over the next 10 years, they responded to questionnaires about their engagement with music and underwent annual cognitive tests.
The Monash team found that those who listened to music frequently were 39 percent less likely to develop dementia. Those who played an instrument reaped similar benefits: a 35 percent lower risk of developing dementia.
Because it was observational, the study — published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry — does not prove that listening to music reduces the risk of dementia. It does, however, add to mounting evidence that music activates parts of the brain that are key to cognitive function.
“One of the things that seems to be really important is just getting all those areas to talk to each other in meaningful ways,” Elizabeth Margulis, PhD, director of Princeton University’s Music Cognition Lab, tells the Post. “That’s something music is exceptionally good at doing.”
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