How to optimally stimulate the developing brain is still unclear. Executive functions (EF) exhibited substantially stronger far transfer effects in children who learned to play a musical instrument than in children who acquired other arts.
What is crucially lacking is a large-scale, long-term genuine randomized controlled trial (RCT) in cognitive neuroscience, comparing musical instrumental training (MIP) to another art form and a control group. Collected data of this proposal will allow, using machine learning, to build a data-driven multivariate model of children's interconnected brain and EF development over the first 2 years of their academic curriculum (6-8 years), with or without music or other art training.
School grade 3P/4P (3rd and 4th year of elementary school (6-8-year-old children)
Right-handedness
Sufficient Mastery of the French Language
Able to give oral informed consent (child)
Non-consent (children and or parents)
Repeated or skipped a class with respect to standard curriculum
Not corrected/severe hearing deficits
Not corrected/severe vision deficits
Parallel
Orchestra in Class
BehavioralSee arm/group descriptions
Working Memory
Working memory (WM) will be assessed by 3 tests: 2 fMRI tests: a visual and an auditory WM test (Vuontela et al., 2003) and the Digit Span Backward from the WISC V (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children; Wechsler, 2014). We expect the progress of the mean WM score to show the following evolution after 2 years: Orchestra in Class \> Visual Arts \> Passive Control Group
Plasticity of gray matter brain volume
Gray matter brain plasticity, measured by T1-weighted MRI MP2RAGE (magnetization prepared 2 rapid acquisition gradient echoes; Marques \& Gruetter, 2013) We expect greater gray matter volume change after 2 years according to the following gradient: Orchestra in Class \> Visual Arts \> Passive Control Group For the following brain areas: notably in a set of temporal (medial and lateral (auditory)), prefrontal, superior parietal areas, the basal ganglia (striatum), the cerebellum and the corpus callosum (supporting Working Memory, Executive Functions and attention)
Functional brain connectivity
Functional brain connectivity, measured with resting-state functional MRI (Leonardi,et al., 2013) We anticipate greater Functional Connectivity (FC) changes following the same gradient Orchestra in Class \> Visual Arts \> Passive Control Group In the following brain networks: The Default Mode Network (DMN), Central Executive Network (CEN) and Salience Network (SN)
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School of Health Sciences Geneva
Lead sponsor
University of Geneva, Switzerland
Collaborator
University of Lausanne Hospitals
Collaborator
