Brain plasticity and musical training in infants. A systematic review

Abstract

The early years are extremely important to all aspects of development. Different investigations show that musical training could affect different areas of infant development. The objective of the following work is to track and analyze in the literature the research that indicates that music training would affect cognitive abilities, anatomy and brain activity in infants. A bibliographic search was carried out in the indexed scientific databases (Scielo, Redalyc, ScienceDirect, Pubmed, WOS and Scopus), using the keywords: music, music training, music education, child, cognition, brain, development. The following were used as analysis variables: the evaluation instrument used, the type of intervention used and the training time. The reviewed studies showed conflicting results about the effect of musical training in infants, although, for the most part, it has been found that music training promotes cognitive development and influences other areas.