Experienced musicians outperform non-musicians in understanding speech-in-noise (SPIN). The benefits of lifelong musicianship endure into older age, where musicians experience smaller declines in their ability to understand speech in noisy environments. However, it is presently unknown whether commencing musical training in old age can also counteract age-related decline in speech perception, and whether such training induces changes in neural processing of speech. Here, we recruited older adult non-musicians and assigned them to receive a short course of piano or videogame training, or no training. Participants completed two sessions of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging where they performed a SPIN task prior to and following training. While we found no direct benefit of musical training upon SPIN perception, an exploratory Region of Interest analysis revealed increased cortical responses to speech in left Middle Frontal and Supramarginal Gyri which correlated with changes in SPIN task performance in the group which received music training. These results suggest that short-term musical training in older adults may enhance neural encoding of speech, with the potential to reduce age-related decline in speech perception.

中文翻译：

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短期音乐训练对老年人语音噪声神经处理的影响。

有经验的音乐家在理解噪声中的语音（SPIN）方面优于非音乐家。终身音乐生涯的好处一直持续到老年，在嘈杂的环境中，音乐家的语音理解能力下降的幅度较小。但是，目前尚不知道从高龄开始音乐训练是否还可以抵消与年龄有关的语音知觉下降，以及这种训练是否引起语音神经处理的变化。在这里，我们招募了成年的非音乐家成人，并指派他们接受钢琴或视频游戏的短期培训，或者不接受任何培训。参与者完成了两次功能性磁共振成像课程，他们在培训之前和之后执行了SPIN任务。虽然我们发现音乐训练对SPIN感知没有直接好处，一项探索性的“感兴趣区域”分析显示，左中额额叶和上上神经回的皮层对语音的反应增强，这与接受音乐训练的组中SPIN任务表现的变化相关。这些结果表明，在成年人中进行短期音乐训练可能会增强语音的神经编码，并有可能减少与年龄有关的语音感知能力下降。