Just as our bodies age, so does our brain. Understanding how the brain changes as we get older is crucial, especially with the increasing number of older adults and age-related brain diseases. This fascinating study investigates the impact of ageing on the processing of speech and singing production in the brain. Using state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques, researchers found that as we age, the neural activity involved in speech processing undergoes a reorganization. The left hemisphere becomes less active, while there is increased activity in other regions, such as the prefrontal cortex. Surprisingly, these changes were not observed to the same extent during singing production. In fact, singing seemed to have a different neural network altogether, which also underwent reorganization with age. These findings have implications for understanding vocal production as we age and could potentially shed light on how singing can benefit cognitive health in older adults. For more information on this intriguing research, dive into the full article!

BackgroundUnderstanding healthy brain ageing has become vital as populations are ageing rapidly and age-related brain diseases are becoming more common. In normal brain ageing, speech processing undergoes functional reorganisation involving reductions of hemispheric asymmetry and overactivation in the prefrontal regions. However, little is known about how these changes generalise to other vocal production, such as singing, and how they are affected by associated cognitive demands.MethodsThe present cross-sectional fMRI study systematically maps the neural correlates of vocal production across adulthood (N=100, age 21–88 years) using a balanced 2×3 design where tasks varied in modality (speech: proverbs / singing: song phrases) and cognitive demand (repetition / completion from memory / improvisation).ResultsIn speech production, ageing was associated with decreased left pre- and postcentral activation across tasks and increased bilateral angular and right inferior temporal and fusiform activation in the improvisation task. In singing production, ageing was associated with increased activation in medial and bilateral prefrontal and parietal regions in the completion task, whereas other tasks showed no ageing effects. Direct comparisons between the modalities showed larger age-related activation changes in speech than singing across tasks, including a larger left-to-right shift in lateral prefrontal regions in the improvisation task.ConclusionThe present results suggest that the brains’ singing network undergoes differential functional reorganisation in normal ageing compared to the speech network, particularly during a task with high executive demand. These findings are relevant for understanding the effects of ageing on vocal production as well as how singing can support communication in healthy ageing and neurological rehabilitation.

Read Full Article (External Site)