Gaser and Schlaug (2003)

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Revision as of 22:56, 24 February 2008

In Christian Gaser and Gottfried Schlaug's titled article "Brain Structures Differ between Musicians and Non-Musicians", they studied the difference between the brain structures of musicians and non-musicians. Musicians are different from non-musicians because musicians acquire many different skills such as motor and auditory skills that allow them to simultaneously read, hear, and produce music. In order to be skilled in playing an instrument, one must take time to practice to master certain techniques. Gaser and Schlaug found gray matter difference in three groups of people that they studied (professional musicians, amateur musicians, and non-musicians). They hope to find evidence to support their hypothesis that long-term skill aquisition and repetitive rehersal of music skills cause structral adaptations in the brain.

In this study, right-handed, male, keyboard players were studied. There were 80 participants. 20 participants were professionsl musicians (practiced 1+ hours a day), 20 were amateurs (music is not considered a career), and 40 were non-musicians(no experience in music at all). All the participants were within the age range of 18-40 years of age.

The results show a positive correlation between the status of the musicians and the volume of gray matter (density of neurons) in certain brain areas. The volume in the sensorimotor cortex, auditory, and visuospatial regions of the cortex showed to be larger in professional keyboard players than amateur keyboard players and the nonmusicians and larger in the amateur keyboard players than the nonmusicians.

There are many factors that plays into the results found in Gaser and Schlaug's study. In relation to plasticity, the age in which the musicians started to play the keyboard affects the brain areas because more grey matter is able to be produced at an earlier age. It is easier for neurons to specialize in the brain areas that are devoted to visual, auditory, and motor actions. The duration of practice time also affected the amount of grey matter produced. The more practice time used each day by the musicians had an impact on the volume of grey matter in each participant. White matter was strengthened by the years of practicing.

The setbacks in this study include studying only male, right-handed, keyboard players. It is possible that results would vary if it were to include, females, left-handed players, and musicians other than keyboard.

Some of the issues that rise from this study ask whether this extra grey matter found in musicians actually plasticity. Another issue is that inborn differences in the brain may contribute to the differences in brain matter. Perhaps the plasticity found in this study is simply due to the plasticity done during the musicians' early years of playing music.