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Musical experience partially counteracts temporal speech processing deficits in putative mild cognitive impairment
Caitlin N Price1, Gavin M Bidelman2
1Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
|June 28, 2022
Summary
Musical experience may protect against cognitive decline in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Music training improved speech processing in the brain, suggesting a potential cognitive benefit for those with early signs of MCI.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Auditory Processing
- Cognitive Aging
Background:
- Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) accelerates cognitive decline and can impair speech perception due to neurophysiological changes.
- Current communication interventions for MCI show limited benefits.
- Musical experience is linked to neuroplasticity, enhancing speech representation and counteracting age-related perceptual decline.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if musical experience offers cognitive protection against MCI.
- To evaluate the impact of musical experience on speech encoding in older adults with MCI.
Main Methods:
- Electroencephalograms (EEGs) were recorded during a vowel categorization task in older adults with suspected MCI.
- Speech encoding was assessed across auditory pathways (subcortical and cortical).
- Participants' duration of formal musical experience (0-21 years) was a key variable.
Main Results:
- Musical experience enhanced temporal precision in auditory cortical responses, indicating more efficient acoustic feature processing and counteracting neural delays.
- Robust brainstem responses correlated with less severe cognitive decline, suggesting early speech representations are sensitive to preclinical MCI.
- Findings demonstrate positive effects of musical experience in older adults with emerging cognitive impairments.
Conclusions:
- Musical experience can improve neural processing of speech in older adults with MCI.
- This suggests music training may offer a degree of cognitive protection against the effects of MCI.
- Early auditory processing, particularly brainstem responses, may serve as an indicator of preclinical cognitive impairment.
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