11/12/2025
Creativity enriches life in more ways than we have thought.
A new study in Nature Communications found that creative hobbies—like dancing, music, art, or even video games—can keep the brain younger at the molecular level.
Researchers compared “brain age” with chronological age using neuroimaging data from more than 1,200 participants. Those who practiced creative skills regularly had brains that appeared younger overall.
The strongest effect was seen in expert tango dancers, whose brains were, on average, seven years younger than their age. Creativity activates multiple regions at once—coordination, rhythm, memory, decision-making—strengthening the same neural networks that typically decline over time.
And it’s never too late to start. Even learning something new, like an instrument or a strategy-based game, showed measurable gains in brain connectivity.