Brattico Elvira, Bonetti Leonardo, Ferretti Gabriella, Vuust Peter, Matrone Carmela
Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & The Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark.
Department of Education, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", 70121 Bari, Italy.
Cells. 2021 Jan 18;10(1):183. doi: 10.3390/cells10010183.
Motor exercise, such as sport or musical activities, helps with a plethora of diseases by modulating brain functions in neocortical and subcortical regions, resulting in behavioural changes related to mood regulation, well-being, memory, and even cognitive preservation in aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Although evidence is accumulating on the systemic neural mechanisms mediating these brain effects, the specific mechanisms by which exercise acts upon the cellular level are still under investigation. This is particularly the case for music training, a much less studied instance of motor exercise than sport. With regards to sport, consistent neurobiological research has focused on the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), an essential player in the central nervous system. BDNF stimulates the growth and differentiation of neurons and synapses. It thrives in the hippocampus, the cortex, and the basal forebrain, which are the areas vital for memory, learning, and higher cognitive functions. Animal models and neurocognitive experiments on human athletes converge in demonstrating that physical exercise reliably boosts BDNF levels. In this review, we highlight comparable early findings obtained with animal models and elderly humans exposed to musical stimulation, showing how perceptual exposure to music might affect BDNF release, similar to what has been observed for sport. We subsequently propose a novel hypothesis that relates the neuroplastic changes in the human brains after musical training to genetically- and exercise-driven BDNF levels.
运动锻炼，如体育活动或音乐活动，通过调节新皮层和皮层下区域的大脑功能，有助于治疗多种疾病，从而导致与情绪调节、幸福感、记忆甚至衰老和神经退行性疾病中的认知保护相关的行为变化。尽管关于介导这些大脑效应的全身神经机制的证据越来越多，但运动在细胞水平上起作用的具体机制仍在研究中。音乐训练尤其如此，它是一种比体育活动研究少得多的运动锻炼形式。关于体育活动，一致的神经生物学研究集中在脑源性神经营养因子（BDNF）上，它是中枢神经系统中的一个重要因素。BDNF刺激神经元和突触的生长与分化。它在海马体、皮层和基底前脑（对记忆、学习和更高认知功能至关重要的区域）中大量存在。对人类运动员的动物模型和神经认知实验都表明，体育锻炼确实能提高BDNF水平。在这篇综述中，我们强调了在动物模型和接受音乐刺激的老年人中获得的类似早期发现，展示了对音乐的感知接触可能如何影响BDNF的释放，这与体育活动中观察到的情况类似。我们随后提出了一个新的假设，将音乐训练后人类大脑中的神经可塑性变化与基因和运动驱动的BDNF水平联系起来。
