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Never Too Late to Learn

Jack Black in the film 'School of Rock.' ENLARGE
Jack Black in the film 'School of Rock.' Paramount/Everett Collection

Neuroscience is in the process of reinventing itself. For 400 years, the brain was seen as a machine with parts, each performing a single mental function in a single brain location. Eventually the brain was seen as a computer with hard-wired circuits, all formed and finalized in childhood. It was believed that the brain's circuitry was only alterable in certain "critical periods," or brief windows of extreme plasticity; these were thought to occur in childhood, when experience helped to form the brain's circuitry. The conventional wisdom was that certain skills must be learned early on; it was generally "too late" for adults to pick up a new language or musical skill. Plasticity was for kids.

But in the past few decades mainstream neuroscience has reversed itself, demonstrating that the brain is "neuroplastic" from cradle to grave. Neuroplasticity is the property of the brain that allows it to change its structure and function through mental experience. This discovery has led to new treatments for learning disabilities and for strokes (so that adults can at times, through brain exercises, develop new circuitry and cure themselves). A host of neurological and psychiatric problems and injuries can now be addressed through mind-based interventions.

The question thus inevitably arises: What ambitious kinds of learning might we, as adults, undertake? Is the brain plastic enough, say, for a 39-year-old adult without any apparent musical skill to learn an instrument and become a musician? In "Guitar Zero," the cognitive psychologist Gary Marcus sets out to answer this question by using himself as a guinea pig.

Mr. Marcus tells us that, since childhood, he had yearned to be musical and play the electric guitar but had concluded that he lacked the talent (hence, "Guitar Zero"). His friend Daniel Levitin, an accomplished musician, neuroscientist and the author of "This Is Your Brain on Music," tried to give Mr. Marcus a few guitar lessons and joked that he suffered from "congenital arrhythmia." But one day, fiddling with the videogame Guitar Hero, which gives a player the illusion of playing guitar licks by pressing the right button at the right moment, Mr. Marcus was so enthralled that he decided to spend his coming sabbatical trying to learn to play guitar—in effect, testing whether his brain was plastic enough to do so. This book recounts the 18-month experience, practicing up to six hours a day. "Guitar Zero" is a refreshing alternation between the nitty-gritty details of learning rock-guitar licks and Mr. Marcus's survey of the relevant scientific literature on learning and the brain.

Guitar Zero

By Gary Marcus
The Penguin Press, 274 pages, $25.95

Mr. Marcus discovers that "the evidence for critical periods is surprisingly weak." It is not that critical periods (when the brain is especially plastic) do not exist. They do, but they vary. The science shows that, at least for learning a language, we don't suddenly lose our plasticity and ability to learn at the end of the critical period. The falloff is often gradual. Relatedly, complex activities such as language and music involve many brain areas, not all affected equally. Studies of language development show that critical periods apply more to learning accent formation than to learning grammar. In music, a study shows that perfect pitch must be learned early; other skills, such as music theory, it appears, need not be.

The conditions for plastic change are altered after the critical period. Babies in a critical period for language development can learn words effortlessly, for example: As I like to put it, babies don't furrow their brows to pick up new words as adults do when cramming for a vocabulary test. After the critical period, deliberate mental effort and focus alter the brain's circuitry and grow new connections.


Immersion fosters learning after the critical period, not only because it enforces more practice time. Adults have more difficulty learning than children in part because they have built up so many language habits that they have to overcome. This too is a product of brain plasticity: The circuits we use the most get stronger and "outcompete" others. Immersion prevents us from reinforcing those habits.

I knew an intelligence officer who had failed to learn languages repeatedly until he was appointed head of the CIA's Latin American desk. Now his problem was serious. He moved abroad, lived with a Spanish family that couldn't speak any English, and became fluent in months. Mr. Marcus's immersion included not just playing but learning music theory and conducting interviews with musicians. Guitarist Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine), we learn, didn't start playing until he was 17, but he practiced six hours a day for four years while a doing an undergraduate degree at Harvard. He missed only three days, for a total of 8,760 hours.

"Guitar Zero" makes some delightful counterintuitive fine points. Kids are not quicker learners; but they are more persistent. Kids will practice riffs over and over, just as they will play a new videogame ad nauseam. In the end, Mr. Marcus does not become the next Jimi Hendrix, but he can play guitar, perform in a band and write songs, and he has overcome his supposedly hard-wired "congenital" arrhythmia.

Most important, his life has been significantly changed; it is more balanced, its joy enhanced by his becoming musical. Few people can imagine taking off 18 months to change themselves in such a way, but then few know it is possible. For those who look forward, in "retirement," to honoring the lifelong yearnings they have neglected, "Guitar Zero" is good news. Neuroplastic discoveries about adult development are a good reason for the word "retirement" to itself be retired. We may be happiest if we work our brains as hard as ever—doing something we love.

Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version of this article misspelled Jimi Hendrix's first name as Jimmy.

Dr. Doidge is the author of "The Brain That Changes Itself."

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