Two Paths to an Ageless Brain: Cognitive Training and Musical Practice Both Protect Memory Into Old Age
Can the aging brain be actively reshaped? Two new studies, taken together, provide a compelling answer: yes, and in more ways than one.
A study of nearly 4,000 adults aged 19 to 94 found that as little as five to 15 minutes per day of strategy-based cognitive training produced measurable improvements in thinking, emotional balance, and sense of purpose at every age — including among participants in their 80s. Separately, a four-year follow-up study of older adults who learned to play a musical instrument in their 70s found that those who kept playing maintained their verbal working memory and preserved gray matter volume in a key brain structure, while those who stopped saw declines.
The two papers, published within weeks of each other, suggest that the aging brain retains far more plasticity than was once assumed — and that different forms of engagement may reinforce cognitive resilience through overlapping but distinct mechanisms.
The brain training study
Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth tracked 3,966 adults over more than three years, making this the largest longitudinal brain-training study of its kind. Participants completed the BrainHealth Index — a multidimensional assessment of cognitive function, emotional balance, and social purpose — every six months, while engaging in five to 15 minutes per day of strategy-based cognitive training delivered through an online platform.
The results, published in Scientific Reports on May 2, showed measurable improvement in all three BrainHealth Index factors across every age group. Age did not predict outcomes. Consistency of training was the strongest predictor of gains, outranking demographics like education and gender. Even the highest-performing participants continued to improve, suggesting no ceiling effect.
“The brain health span can be increased across adulthood, regardless of age,” said Lori G. Cook, the study’s corresponding author.
The BrainHealth Index, which includes validated measures such as the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire alongside proprietary cognitive assessments, was designed to track individual change rather than compare against population norms. The study found that participants with the lowest baseline scores showed the largest gains — and that those gains persisted even during major life stressors such as illness, job loss, and caregiving.
The findings are limited by the study’s single-arm design (no randomized control group) and a participant pool that was predominantly white, female, and college-educated. The authors note that larger, more diverse trials are needed to confirm the results.
The musical instrument study
A separate team at Kyoto University followed 32 healthy older adults who had begun learning the melodica, a keyboard harmonica, in their late 60s and early 70s as part of a structured training program. Over the next four years, 13 participants continued playing — forming a melodica club, performing at public festivals — while 19 stopped and pursued other leisure activities such as table tennis and gymnastics.
The results, published in Imaging Neuroscience, were striking. The group that continued playing showed preserved verbal working memory performance and maintained gray matter volume in the right putamen, a subcortical structure involved in motor learning and cognitive flexibility. The group that stopped showed significant decline in both measures.
Functional MRI data revealed additional differences. The continuing players showed more efficient neural processing: lower connectivity between the cerebellum and pons during verbal working memory tasks, alongside greater cerebellar activation. This pattern suggests that musical practice drives neuroplastic changes that make the aging brain more efficient, not just more active.
“The effects were specific to those who kept playing,” the researchers noted. A delayed story recall task and an executive function measure showed no difference between groups, indicating that the benefits were concentrated in verbal working memory and subcortical preservation.
The study is small — 32 participants from a single welfare center in Kyoto, predominantly female — and participants self-selected into the continuing and stopping groups, so the results cannot be treated as causal. The original paper is a year old (June 2025), but the findings remain relevant as part of a growing body of evidence on late-life neuroplasticity.
What connects them
The two studies approach cognitive aging from different angles. The UT Dallas study shows that brief, consistent mental exercise can improve how people feel and think at any age, using a broad index of brain health. The Kyoto study shows that a specific enriched activity — learning and practicing music — can protect a specific cognitive function and its underlying brain structure.
Both challenge the assumption that age-related cognitive decline is inevitable. Both suggest that the brain responds to structured engagement, whether in the form of five minutes of daily strategy training or a weekly melodica club rehearsal.
The practical implication is encouragingly simple: it may not matter which activity you choose, as long as you choose one and stick with it.
Sources
Cook LG, Spence JS, Chang Z, et al. Measuring and increasing the brain health span across adulthood: a public health imperative. Scientific Reports. 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-51403-3
Wang X, Yamashita M, Guo X, et al. Never too late to start musical instrument training: Effects on working memory and subcortical preservation in healthy older adults across 4 years. Imaging Neuroscience. 2025;3:IMAG.a.48. DOI: 10.1162/IMAG.a.48