Tune a piano? Tune your brain

People who tune pianos for a living are also tuning their brains, reflected in actual physical changes in brain matter, British researchers say. Researchers at University College London and Newcastle University using magnetic resonance imaging to study professional piano tuners said the scans revealed highly specific changes in the hippocampus, which governs memory and navigation, the BBC reported Wednesday. Listening to two notes played simultaneously to make them pitch perfect, a piano tuners do, makes the brain adapt, the researches said. The extent of the physical changes to the brain correlated with the number of years the subjects had been tuning pianos, they said. "We already know that musical training can correlate with structural changes, but our group of professionals offered a rare opportunity to examine the ability of the brain to adapt over time to a very specialized form of listening," researcher Sundeep Teki said. Previous research has uncovered similar hippocampal changes in taxi drivers as they build up detailed mental maps needed to find their way around London's convoluted byways, the BBC said.