Newsweek 2000, by Sharon Begley

In this article, Ms. Begley wrote that researchers led by Dr. Gottfried Schlaug of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston compared the brains of 30 nonmusicians with the brains of 30 professional string and piano players. These researchers found that the corpus callosum, which can be described as a large trunk line connecting the brain’s right and left hemispheres, was “strikingly different” between the two groups. They found that “the front part of this thick cable of neurons is larger in musicians, especially if they begin their training before the age of seven. The front of the corpus callosum connects the two sides of the prefrontal cortex, the site of planning and foresight. It also connects the two sides of the premotor cortex, where actions are mapped out before they’re executed.”