Musicians are different.
For instance, in one study, people who played musical instruments as children showed more robust brainstem responses to sound than did non-musicians.
Other studies have reported that kids assigned to receive musical training developed distinctive neural responses to music and speech, evidence of more intense information processing that was linked with improvements in the discrimination of pitch and the segmentation of speech.
And it's not just a matter of differences in brain activity. There are also differences in brain volume.
If you examine the brain of a keyboard player, you’ll find that the region of the brain that controls finger movements is enlarged.
Moreover, brain scans of 9- to 11-year old children have revealed that those kids who play musical instruments have significantly more grey matter volume in both the sensorimotor cortex and the occipital lobes.
In fact, musicians have significantly more grey matter in several brain regions, and the effects of music lessons seem to increase with the intensity of training.
One study compared professional keyboard players with amateurs. Although both groups had music training, the professionals practiced twice as much. The professionals also had significantly more grey matter volume in a number of brain regions.
Read the full article at: Parenting Science.
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