Dec 23, 2014 05:57 PM EST By J Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

New research suggests that children who play the violin could be learning more than just Mozart.

Researchers from the University of Vermont College have found that musical training might also help kids focus their attention, control their emotions and diminish their anxiety. Investigators call their study the "largest investigation of the association between playing a musical instrument and brain development."

For the study, researcher James Hudziak and colleagues analyzed the brain scans of 232 children ages 6 to 18.

They found the evidence they expected -- that music playing altered the motor areas of the brain, because the activity requires control and coordination of movement. Even more important to researchers were changes in the behavior-regulating areas of the brain.

For example, music practice influenced thickness in the part of the cortex that relates to "executive functioning, including working memory, attentional control, as well as organization and planning for the future," study authors wrote.

A child's musical background also appears to correlate with cortical thickness in "brain areas that play a critical role in inhibitory control, as well as aspects of emotion processing."

The findings bolster Hudziak's hypothesis that a violin might help a child battle psychological disorders even better than a bottle of pills. "We treat things that result from negative things, but we never try to use positive things as treatment," he says.

Such an approach may prove difficult to accomplish. According to the study's authors, research from the U.S. Department of Education indicates that three-quarters of U.S. high school students "rarely or never" take extracurricular lessons in music or the arts.

"Such statistics, when taken in the context of our present neuroimaging results," the authors write, "underscore the vital importance of finding new and innovative ways to make music training more widely available to youths, beginning in childhood."

The findings are detailed in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

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