These are typical responses from some of my middle school students. In some cases, I will say that a student probably will complain about doing some work in any class, whether encore or special subject. These classes are available in high school as elective courses and when in high school, they can choose whether or not they take such a class. In considering what effect music learning has on brain activity, we must understand how nerve cells work. A nerve cell, or neuron is a cell that receives information other nerve cells or from the sensory organs and then projects that information to the body that interact with the environment such as the muscles.
Information comes into the cell from projections called axons.
Most of the excitatory information comes into the cell from the dendritic field, often through tiny dendritic projections called spines. The junctions through which information passes from one neuron to another are called synapses, which can be excitatory or inhibitory in nature. The neuron integrates the information it receives from all of its synapses and this determines its output. When a baby comes into the world her brain is a jumble of neurons, all waiting to be molded into the intricate tapestry of the mind. Some of the neurons have already been hard-wired, by the genes in the fertilized egg, into circuits that control breathing, the heartbeat, body temperature or reflexes.