Long-Known Music Exposure Effects on Brain Imaging and Cognition in Early-Stage Cognitive Decline: A Pilot Study

Repeated exposure to long-known music has been shown to have a beneficial effect on cognitive performance in patients with AD. However, the brain mechanisms underlying improvement in cognitive performance are not yet clear.

In this pilot study we propose to examine the effect of repeated long-known music exposure on imaging indices and corresponding changes in cognitive function in patients with early-stage cognitive decline.

Participants with early-stage cognitive decline were assigned to three weeks of daily long-known music listening, lasting one hour in duration. A cognitive battery was administered, and brain activity was measured before and after intervention. Paired-measures tests evaluated the longitudinal changes in brain structure, function, and cognition associated with the intervention.

Fourteen participants completed the music-based intervention, including 6 musicians and 8 non-musicians. Post-baseline there was a reduction in brain activity in key nodes of a music-related network, including the bilateral basal ganglia and right inferior frontal gyrus, and declines in fronto-temporal functional connectivity and radial diffusivity of dorsal white matter. Musician status also significantly modified longitudinal changes in functional and structural brain measures. There was also a significant improvement in the memory subdomain of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.

These preliminary results suggest that neuroplastic mechanisms may mediate improvements in cognitive functioning associated with exposure to long-known music listening and that these mechanisms may be different in musicians compared to non-musicians.