Name:John Iversen

School/Affiliation:McMaster University

Co-Authors:Nikita Jacob, Karina Kiraly, Victoria Li

Virtual or In-person:In-person

Abstract:

The idea that engagement with music can play a positive role in child development has been around since ancient times when music was widely seen as a critical ingredient to the formation of a complete mind and healthy society. We aim to understand the interactions, if any, between music and the developing mind, brain, and person. Our approach is to leverage very large longitudinal studies of child and adolescent development, the ABCD and PLING studies, and add to them measurements of music engagement. These studies follow over ten thousand developing youth annually, describing growth curves of many measures, including academic abilities, mental health, engagement with activities (music was the most highly endorsed activity), and detailed measurements of brain structure. In young children, we have confirmed a previously suggested link between music experience and the development of language skills and have found a relationship between parts of the brain controlling movement and the perception of rhythmic sounds. In older youth, we found that participation in music activities was more strongly correlated with measures of cognitive development than sports and that music listening and the use of music to support mental health increased year by year. Most importantly, this poster will provide an opportunity for undergraduate thesis students to showcase and receive feedback on their own research questions on music, brain structure, substance use and language using this rich dataset as they probe important, complex, interactions that play a role in shaping developmental outcomes for youth.