TYPE
Editorial
06 December 2023
10.3389/fnhum.2023.1342325
PUBLISHED
DOI
OPEN ACCESS
EDITED AND REVIEWED BY
Lutz Jäncke,
University of Zurich, Switzerland
*CORRESPONDENCE
Leonie Kausel
leonie.kausel@udp.cl
21 November 2023
22 November 2023
PUBLISHED 06 December 2023
RECEIVED
ACCEPTED
CITATION
Kausel L, Basso JC, Grinspun N and Alain C
(2023) Editorial: Effects of performing arts
training on the brain, (socio)cognitive and
motor functions across the lifespan.
Front. Hum. Neurosci. 17:1342325.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1342325
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© 2023 Kausel, Basso, Grinspun and Alain. This
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Editorial: Effects of performing
arts training on the brain,
(socio)cognitive and motor
functions across the lifespan
Leonie Kausel1*, Julia C. Basso2,3,4 , Noemí Grinspun5,6 and
Claude Alain7,8,9,10
1
Centro de Estudios en Neurociencia Humana y Neuropsicología (CENHN), Facultad de Psicología,
Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile, 2 Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise,
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, United States, 3 School of Neuroscience, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA,
United States, 4 Center for Health Behaviors Research, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia
Tech Carilion, Roanoke, VA, United States, 5 Núcleo de Bienestar y Desarrollo Humano, Education
Research Center (CIE-UMCE), Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación, Santiago, Chile,
6
The School of Creative Arts Therapies, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel, 7 Institute of Medical Science,
Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, 8 Rotman Research Institute,
Baycrest Health Sciences, Toronto, ON, Canada, 9 Music and Health Research Collaboratory, Faculty of
Music, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, 10 Department of Psychology, University of Toronto,
Toronto, ON, Canada
KEYWORDS
performing arts, brain, (socio)cognitive functions, motor functions, lifespan
Editorial on the Research Topic
Effects of performing arts training on the brain, (socio)cognitive and
motor functions across the lifespan
Performing arts are a cultural expression that is ubiquitous around the world and
consists of arts that are performed for an audience, such as music, dance, and drama. In
recent years, there has been a growing interest in understanding how this expressive, and
in essence social activity, impacts brain development and plasticity. This topic aimed to
collect evidence on how the brain and (socio)cognitive and motor functions are influenced
by performing arts training along the lifespan, deepening the current knowledge on this
subject and helping to unravel the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie these changes.
The five articles presented in this Research Topic explore research on an acting intervention,
cover matters related to dance training, identify variables related to music sophistication,
and focus on performing arts and musical training.
The first two articles are related to performing arts in older age. The first article by
Rajesh et al. evaluates the impact of an acting intervention on brain activity of older
adults during resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Prior research
suggests that brain modularity, or brain regions that are distinctly and densely connected
with other brain regions, decreases with age (Betzel et al., 2014), which may be related to
outcomes of poorer executive functioning (Baniqued et al., 2017). In the article from Rajesh
et al., older adults participated in an intervention two times a week for four weeks. The
active intervention group enacted scenes with a partner, whereas the active control group
learned about the history and styles of acting. The acting group showed an increase in
brain modularity when compared to pre-intervention baselines and active controls. Also,
performance on updating tasks was representative of the intervention group, but it was not
possible to distinguish groups by means of evaluating interactions between post-intervention
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10.3389/fnhum.2023.1342325
performance on updating and increases in brain modularity. Taken
together, the results indicate that acting interventions in older age
mitigate age effects on brain modularity activity and executive
functions. The second article by Pentikäinen et al. summarizes
the findings of a two year follow-up study on the impact of
choir singing on aging cognition and wellbeing. In this study,
older adult choir singers and demographically matched non-singers
were assessed at three time points over two years on cognitive
functioning and emotional and social wellbeing, using self-report
questionnaires and standardized tests. Results showed that choir
singers had higher verbal flexibility already at the first measuring
time point that did not change over time, and that non-singers
showed an enhancement in this task over measuring times. On
the other hand, word knowledge, social inclusion and safety of
the environment perception changed between singers and nonsingers over time (enhancement in choir singers and decline
in non-singers), even when there were no significant changes
within groups. Importantly, shorter experience in choir singing was
associated with greater improvement in word knowledge over the
follow-up period. This indicates that verbal advantages acquired
through singing are noticeable during the first training period.
Both articles point toward results that indicate that performing arts
could have a positive effect on older adults’ brain and cognitive
functions. This is especially important in light of the actual need
for cost-effective interventions for the older population that could
allow them to have a better life trajectory (WHO, 2017). As such,
performing arts emerge as a promising approach that could help to
achieve this goal.
The third article by Yang et al. explores how the experience of
integrating the body and mind in dancers impacts the functional
connectivity of the extended mirror neuron system (eMNS) during
rs-fMRI. The eMNS is active during both action execution and
observation (Ramsey et al., 2021) and could be modulated by dance
training. Findings show that dancers have enhanced intra-regional
functional connectivity within core eMNS areas (e.g., frontal
gyrus, premotor cortex, basal ganglia). These results suggest that
these mechanisms potentially could enable dancers to effortlessly
integrate observed actions into their own motor skills by imitating
and simulating dance movements.
The fourth article by Cui et al. deals with connectivity patterns
measured during rs-fMRI related to music sophistication. Musical
sophistication encompasses a broad spectrum of musical skills,
such as singing abilities, and is not limited to individuals with
formal music training (Müllensiefen et al., 2014). Interestingly,
this study shows that only a small part of the connectivity
patterns associated with music sophistication seem to relate to
the effects of performing arts training beyond the effects of
individual musical sophistication levels. In general their results
emphasize the potential involvement of sensory regions in active
engagement with music, the potential contribution of motor areas
in processing emotions in music, and the potential impact of
connectivity between the putamen and lingual gyrus in overall
musical sophistication. Taken together, these findings suggest that
there is still much to be understood on how connectivity patterns
associated with constructs such as music sophistication arise and
could be impacted by different forms of performing arts.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Finally, the fifth article by Korte et al. is a study that explores
a dark side effect that sometimes accompanies performing arts
mostly due to incorrect postures: chronic pain (Gasenzer et al.,
2017; Swain et al., 2018). This study evaluated pain perception and
pain catastrophizing, a critical pain-related behavior and emotional
concept, in musicians and non-musicians through self-report
questionnaires. Interestingly, they found that pain catastrophizing
was significantly worse in non-musicians compared to musicians,
even though the last ones that practiced in college (a study modality
preferred by those students that aim to attain elite music status)
reported perceiving pain for significantly longer. This evidence
suggests that musicians do not seem to develop maladaptive pain
management strategies, despite the fact that they can suffer from
chronic pain.
In conclusion, the collection of articles published in this
Research Topic contributes to our understanding of the complex
interplay between performing arts and brain and (socio)cognitive
and motor functions. The findings exposed here encourage further
exploration of performing arts as a valuable and multifaceted model
to study brain plasticity and as a tool for potential applications to
promote wellbeing in older adults.
Author contributions
LK: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. JB:
Writing – review & editing. NG: Writing – review & editing. CA:
Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted
in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships
that could be construed as a potential conflict
of interest.
The author(s) declared that they were an editorial
board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission.
This had no impact on the peer review process and the
final decision.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the
authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated
organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the
reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or
claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or
endorsed by the publisher.
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