TORONTO and BEIJING — Anyone who has tried to follow a conversation in a crowded restaurant knows how challenging it can be to pick out words when there’s background noise. For older adults, this ...

There's more to music than meets the ear. Researchers trying to understand how the mind comprehends music and the role that cultural familiarity plays in the process have found that exposure to music ...

Would you like to your brain to keep working at top capacity, especially as you get older? Two new studies both suggest that playing a musical instrument can help. And—good news—you can start at any ...

New research indicates that children with better rhythmic abilities tend to exhibit a slower, more prolonged rate of brain development in specific regions associated with motor control and emotion.

An international research team investigated the brains of 16 jazz pianists while they played a piece from memory, improvised based on the melody, and freely improvised based on the chord changes. The ...

How do people keep the beat to music? When people listen to songs, slow waves of activity in the brain correspond to the perceived beat so that they can tap their feet, nod their heads, or dance along ...