Just 30 minutes of music training improves language

Do not junk your singing or classical music training class as there is a healthier side to it. Just half an hour of simple music training daily increases blood flow to a particular area of brain that processes language skills.

According to researchers at the University of Liverpool, a brief musical training can increase the blood flow in the left hemisphere of our brain.

"The areas of our brain that process music and language are thought to be shared and previous research has suggested that musical training can lead to the increased use of the left hemisphere of the brain," said Amy Spray from University of Liverpool's school of psychology.

During the research, the team carried out two separate studies which looked at brain activity patterns in musicians and non-musicians.

The first study looked for patterns of brain activity in 14 musicians and nine non-musicians, while they participated in music and word generation tasks.

The results showed that patterns in the musician's brains were similar in both tasks but this was not the case for the non-musicians.

In the second study, brain activity patterns were measured in a different group of non-musical participants who took part in a word generation task and a music perception task.

The measurements were also taken again following half an hour's musical training.

They were fascinated to see the similarities in blood flow signatures.

This study looked into the modulatory effects that musical training could have on the use of the different sides of the brain when performing music and language tasks.

"We can assume that musical training results in a rapid change in the cognitive mechanisms utilised for music perception and these shared mechanisms are usually employed for language," said Liverpool psychologist Georg Mayer.