The long-term musical training is associated with good robust changes in large-scale brain networks

A new study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggests that long-term musical training is associated with robust changes in large-scale brain networks.

A minority of musicians, with like Mozart and Jimi Hendrix in their rank,  possess absolute pitch, the ability to name a tone without reference - without a relative comparison of tone levels.

But, it remains unclear how this ability impacts the brain.

In the new research, Dr. Simon Leipold of Stanford University and colleagues compared the brains of professional musicians to non-musicians.

To the team’s surprise, there were no strong differences between the brains of musicians with and without absolute pitch ability; instead absolute pitch may shape the brain in more subtle ways.

Compared to non-musicians, both types of musicians had stronger functional connectivity — the synchronized activity of brain regions — in the auditory regions of both brain hemispheres.

The study involved 153 female and male human participants: 52 absolute pitch musicians, 51 non-absolute pitch musicians, and 50 non-musicians.

Source: Musical expertise shapes functional and structural brain networks independent of absolute pitch ability. Journal of Neuroscience, published online January 25, 2021.