Just like a finely-aged piece of music, the brains of elderly musicians still have that special something. A recent study explored how lifelong musical practice affects the brains of older professional musicians. The findings? Well, despite the natural effects of aging, these seasoned musicians maintained unique structural and functional features in their brains that are typically associated with musicianship! It’s as if their brains were expertly composed symphonies that stood the test of time. In fact, when compared to elderly non-musicians, the elderly musicians showed increased gyrification in their auditory cortex, similar to their younger musical counterparts. Additionally, during brain imaging tasks, the elderly musicians activated a wider network of auditory and motor regions compared to the non-musicians, but slightly weaker than the young musicians. These distinct brain differences between musicians and non-musicians could potentially be important for understanding how musical activity affects the aging brain. Further research will be needed to investigate the potential neuroprotective effects of a lifetime of musical engagement on brain health.

BackgroundProfessional musicians are a model population for exploring basic auditory function, sensorimotor and multisensory integration, and training-induced neuroplasticity. The brain of musicians exhibits distinct structural and functional cortical features; however, little is known about how these features evolve during aging. This multiparametric study aimed to examine the functional and structural neural correlates of lifelong musical practice in elderly professional musicians.MethodsSixteen young musicians, 16 elderly musicians (age >70), and 15 elderly non-musicians participated in the study. We assessed gray matter metrics at the whole-brain and region of interest (ROI) levels using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with the Freesurfer automatic segmentation and reconstruction pipeline. We used BrainVoyager semiautomated segmentation to explore individual auditory cortex morphotypes. Furthermore, we evaluated functional blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) activations in auditory and non-auditory regions by functional MRI (fMRI) with an attentive tone-listening task. Finally, we performed discriminant function analyses based on structural and functional ROIs.ResultsA general reduction of gray matter metrics distinguished the elderly from the young subjects at the whole-brain level, corresponding to widespread natural brain atrophy. Age- and musicianship-dependent structural correlations revealed group-specific differences in several clusters including superior, middle, and inferior frontal as well as perirolandic areas. In addition, the elderly musicians exhibited increased gyrification of auditory cortex like the young musicians. During fMRI, the elderly non-musicians activated predominantly auditory regions, whereas the elderly musicians co-activated a much broader network of auditory association areas, primary and secondary motor areas, and prefrontal and parietal regions like, albeit weaker, the young musicians. Also, group-specific age- and musicianship-dependent functional correlations were observed in the frontal and parietal regions. Moreover, discriminant function analysis could separate groups with high accuracy based on a set of specific structural and functional, mainly temporal and occipital, ROIs.ConclusionIn conclusion, despite naturally occurring senescence, the elderly musicians maintained musicianship-specific structural and functional cortical features. The identified structural and functional brain regions, discriminating elderly musicians from non-musicians, might be of relevance for the aging musicians’ brain. To what extent lifelong musical activity may have a neuroprotective impact needs to be addressed further in larger longitudinal studies.

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