Learning a musical instrument in your 70s could help protect memory

Learning a musical instrument later in life may help keep the brain younger for longer. In a four-year study, older adults who continued practicing maintained their memory performance and showed less age-related brain shrinkage than those who quit. The benefits were especially noticeable in brain regions tied to memory and learning. Two brain regions that commonly shrink and become less active with age are the putamen and the cerebellum. Interestingly, neuroscience studies have also identified these same areas as being particularly responsive to musical instrument training. Howe... [3014 chars]