Indeed, research over the past 2 decades has demonstrated that intense musical training can result in plastic changes in the developing brain as well as the adult brain ( Gaser and Schlaug 2003 Hyde and others 2009). Playing an instrument, for example, requires a host of skills, including reading a complex symbolic system (musical notation) and translating it into sequential, bimanual motor activity dependent on multi-sensory feedback developing fine motor skills coupled with metric precision memorizing long musical passages and improvising within given musical parameters. Music making places unique demands on the nervous system and leads to a strong coupling of perception and action mediated by sensory, motor, and multimodal integrative regions distributed throughout the brain ( Schlaug and others 2010). To understand this important phenomenon, it is necessary to accept that, in addition to the reinforcement of pre-established organic pathways, new pathways are created by the ramification and progressive growth of terminal dendritic and axonal processes.

The idea that musical training can be a strong multimodal stimulator for brain plasticity can be traced back to the early 20th century, when Ramon y Cajal (1904/1999) argued that music expertise is associated with anatomical changes in the brain:Д®verybody knows that the ability of a pianist adaptation to the new work requires many years of mental and muscular gymnastics. Furthermore, music making involves multiple sensory modalities and motor planning, preparation, and execution systems ( Schlaug and others 2010). In particular, music making (e.g., learning to sing or to play a musical instrument) is an activity that is typically started early in life, while the brain is most sensitive to plastic changes, and is often continued throughout life by musicians. Skill learning offers a useful model for studying plasticity because it can be easily manipulated in an experimental setting. This brain plasticity underlies normal development and maturation, skill learning and memory, recovery from injury, as well as the consequences of sensory deprivation or environmental enrichment. However, it is now accepted that the brain has a remarkable capacity to modify its structural and functional organization throughout the life span, in response to changes in environmental input. Traditionally, the brain was thought to be hardwired following a critical period in development. Plasticity is a fundamental organizational feature of human brain function. These enhancements suggest the potential for music making as an interactive treatment or intervention for neurological and developmental disorders, as well as those associated with normal aging. Plasticity in this network may explain some of the sensorimotor and cognitive enhancements that have been associated with music training. We argue that training of this neural network may produce cross-modal effects on other behavioral or cognitive operations that draw on this network.

This association learning can strengthen connections between auditory and motor regions (e.g., arcuate fasciculus) while activating multimodal integration regions (e.g., around the intraparietal sulcus). For example, musicians learn and repeatedly practice the association of motor actions with specific sound and visual patterns (musical notation) while receiving continuous multisensory feedback. Thus, musicians offer an excellent human model for studying the brain effects of acquiring specialized sensorimotor skills.

Playing a musical instrument is an intense, multisensory, and motor experience that usually commences at an early age and requires the acquisition and maintenance of a range of skills over the course of a musician's lifetime.

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