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Singing, at any age, can improve accuracy and speed of elocution during complex tasks . Talking is an exercise that requires great coordination between the lungs and the muscles that control the vocal cords, jaw, tongue and lips. As the years go by, these anatomical structures undergo changes that affect vocal function.

When Burnaby eighth grader Advaith S. Iyer decided to participate in the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair (GVRSF) for the first time this spring an ambitious research idea emerged. Seeking to test the cognitive load - the amount of work the brain is doing - associated with playing musical instruments, his high school laboratory equipment was insufficient for his complex experiment.

A new study out of Jessica Grahn's music lab suggests music training may preserve certain rhythmic motor training abilities in early-stage Parkinson's disease. Grahn, a psychology professor and member of the Western Institute for Neuroscience , combines her unique background as a classically trained concert pianist and training as a neuroscientist to focus on why humans move to rhythm, and how and why movement and rhythm may be connected in the brain.  "Humans naturally perceive and move to a music beat, falling into the rhythm through clapping, tapping and dancing," she said.