New research suggests that learning music in high school can hone brain development.

Researchers at Northwestern University found that music training may help enhance skills that are critical for academic success by improving the teenage brain's responses to sound and sharpen hearing and language skills.

"While music programs are often the first to be cut when the school budget is tight, these results highlight music's place in the high school curriculum," Nina Kraus, senior study author and director of Northwestern's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at the School of Communication, said in a statement. "Although learning to play music does not teach skills that seem directly relevant to most careers, the results suggest that music may engender what educators refer to as 'learning to learn.'"

For the study, researchers recruited 40 Chicago-area high school freshmen and followed these children longitudinally until their senior year. During this time, nearly half the students had enrolled in band classes, which involved two to three hours a week of instrumental group music instruction in school. The rest had enrolled in junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), which emphasized fitness exercises during a comparable period. Both groups attended the same schools in low-income neighborhoods.

Researchers found that the music group showed more rapid maturation in the brain's response to sound. Moreover, they demonstrated prolonged heightened brain sensitivity to sound details. All participants improved in language skills tied to sound-structure awareness, but the improvement was greater for those in music classes, compared with the ROTC group.

The findings suggest that high school music training -- increasingly disfavored due to funding shortfalls -- might hone brain development and improve language skills.

"Our results support the notion that the adolescent brain remains receptive to training, underscoring the importance of enrichment during the teenage years," the authors wrote.

The findings are detailed in the journal PNAS.