We all love to sing, in some way or form, whether you are a choral or a cappella musician, a musical theater actor/actress, or simply someone who loves to sing along with the radio. But how can any type of singing affect the way your brain works? How does it benefit us?

This article is one of two parts; this part will focus on the effects of singing on those with neurodegenerative diseases and how it can be used as a non-pharmacological intervention.

In a literature review on how singing affects the aging population (linked here), many ideas are covered about how singing can specifically help patients with dementia. Singing is exhibited as a strategy able to enhance cognitive function and emotional well-being in older adults. Throughout the review, the scientists generally found that the benefits of singing were improvements in verbal fluency, executive function, and episodic memory. There were also structural changes within the brain, like increased white matter integrity and greater auditory and motor integration. Clearly, singing stimulates neuroplasticity, essential for helping cognitive function. Those with dementia had these specific enhancements, and healthy older adults exhibited verbal flexibility and cognitive resilience. The scientists came across the idea that studies show older adults who sing or play a musical instrument exhibit improved cognitive abilities, more specifically, enhanced processing speed and improved learning capabilities. Any musician (professional and amateur) showed brain characteristics that appear younger than their age. This means that being any type of musician is associated with a slower rate of aging in the brain!

To get into more of the specifics in changes of brain structure, we can see that the corpus callosum is generally larger in musicians compared to non-musicians. The corpus callosum essentially links the left and right auditory processing areas, which means that there is greater connectivity and improved transfer between those areas. Musical activities generally are associated with functional and structural connectivity differences in the brain, which is documented by the clear development of areas that usually decline with age. Gray matter and white matter integrity become more resilient, and so do your neural pathways with these structural changes. Since performing music demands many areas of your auditory and motor skills, the scientists found that musical training could extend its influence past the auditory system and could potentially benefit speech abilities, fine motor skills, and inhibitory control.

Singing in particular engages a wide variety of brain functions, “combining auditory, vocal-motor, linguistic, cognitive, and emotional processes into a dynamic and complex activity” (Vila-Vidal et al., 2025). Neuroimaging suggests that singing involves a constant connection between the dorsal and ventral pathways. What this means is that the vocal production and the auditory perception areas are connected with a feedback loop that allows for precise vocal motor control by actually taking the input from the auditory senses. In a specific study that the scientists had reviewed, they looked at the effects of active singing on cognitive function and life satisfaction among those with Alzheimer’s disease in a nursing home. This consisted of three vocal music sessions per week and combined all different genres of music. Results suggest that an active singing program leads to beneficial cognitive enhancements and increased life satisfaction—this furthers the potential of music as a non-pharmacological intervention for neurodegenerative diseases.

Another study the scientists had looked over saw patients with AD engaging in a music therapy program which included singing sessions for six months, weekly, and utilized various other vocal methods. The results showed significant improvements in their psychomotor processing speed and reduced neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia. The fMRI findings show improvements in some neural mechanisms. Finally, another study focused on the improvements in verbal fluency after singing and lyric reading. They had one group sing lyrics and another simply read the lyrics, and they had discovered that the singing group was the one that remembered the lyrics once they were asked to recall. Those benefits, however, only last a short period of time, sustaining for about three months, which means that there needs to be an ongoing intervention to preserve cognitive improvements. Verbal memory also remained stable in these patients, and there were significant improvements in short-term memory and processing speed, specifically in those who sang.

In general, this review found that singing has been shown to enhance episodic memory, mood, contribute to overall well-being, stimulate neuroplasticity, create structural changes within the brain, and serve as an efficient therapy as a non-pharmacological treatment for those with dementia.

So the next time you’re singing along to your favorite song, just remember the great amount of things that your brain is doing to process and help you sing! It’ll be beneficial in the future, and music has the power to slow down brain aging and even help those with neurodegenerative diseases. Never underestimate the power of music!