A research team led by Dr. DU Yi from the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Dr. Claude Alain of Canada's Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, has found that long-term musical training can help counteract age-related declines in speech perception by enhancing cognitive reserve.
The study was published in PLoS Biology on July 15.
As people age, cognitive functions typically decline, often leading to difficulties in understanding speech in noisy environments. Previous studies have shown that older adults recruit additional brain regions, a phenomenon called functional compensation, to maintain performance. However, individuals with higher cognitive reserve, built through lifelong learning and experience, exhibit stronger resistance to such declines. How cognitive reserve interacts with these compensatory mechanisms has remained unclear.
To investigate this, the study recruited three groups: older musicians with over 30 years of instrumental training (high cognitive reserve), older non-musicians (low cognitive reserve), and younger adults as controls. Participants performed a syllable identification task in noisy environments while undergoing functional MRI scanning. The researchers focused on neural responses within the auditory dorsal stream, a pathway involved in sound-to-action mapping and sensorimotor integration during speech processing.
Results showed that older musicians experienced less decline in speech-in-noise perception compared to their non-musician peers. While older non-musicians exhibited increased functional connectivity within bilateral auditory dorsal streams, a typical compensatory response, older musicians maintained connectivity patterns similar to younger adults.
Notably, stronger right-hemisphere dorsal stream connectivity correlated with better speech-in-noise performance. Moreover, older musicians exhibited spatial patterns of functional connectivity more youth-like than those of older non-musicians, who consistently showed greater divergence from the younger profile.
These findings support the "Hold-Back Upregulation" hypothesis, suggesting that cognitive reserve delays the need for compensatory brain overactivity by preserving youthful neural efficiency and network architecture. In essence, cognitive reserve helps the brain maintain optimal function without extra exertion.
"Just like a well-tuned instrument doesn't need to be played louder to be heard, the brains of older musicians stay finely tuned thanks to years of training. Our study shows that this musical experience builds cognitive reserve, helping their brains avoid the usual age-related overexertion when trying to understand speech in noisy places," said Dr. DU, corresponding author of the study.
The research highlights long-term musical training as a natural model of cognitive reserve, offering both scientific evidence and practical guidance for non-pharmacological strategies-such as community choirs or instrument learning programs-to support healthy cognitive aging.
This study was supported by the STI 2030-Major Projects, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
