Does exposure to the arts change the structure of the brain?
Previous studies have suggested that the structure of the brain is different in accomplished musicians than in non-musicians, particularly in the corpus callosum. (See Dr. Gottfried Schlaug on this topic, chapter three.) What these previous studies could not determine was whether the “musician brain” had always been different or whether the differÂences were acquired. The longitudinal studies of Dr. Schlaug and Dr. Winner started with children whose brains looked the same, and indicate that exposure to music is associated with changes in the brain. This is the first indication from a prospective study that music induces specific brain changes.One should not underestimate how difficult these types of longitudinal, controlled studies are to do. Ideally one would recruit a pool of subjects and then randomly assign a group to exposure to music and another group to some other, non-music exposure. From a practical point of view, such a study would be impossible to perform over a longer perio
