Dr. Daisy Fancourt

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445 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 3 Aug

Dr. Daisy Fancourt’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz · Why Creativity Belongs in Your Health Routine with Dr. Daisy Fancourt · 3 Aug 2026 podcast

And actually shown that listening to music and making arts are activities that help to strengthen the

of those particular brain regions.

But actually, as people are getting older as well, there is increasing literature suggesting that arts engagements can help with neuroplasticity, with actually maintaining some neural pathways, but also helping to build new ones.

And this is really important when we're thinking about cognitive reserve, this idea about building that resilience of our brain against cognitive decline.

Because even if we are accumulating sort of pathological symptoms in our brain of dementias,

Some people can compensate for longer than others can.

So some people, even if they've got those symptoms happening in their brain, they can appear fine on the surface.

They can carry on independently, feeling like they're functioning cognitively normally for longer.

And this is this concept of cognitive reserve, that resilience.

And actually increasing studies are suggesting that when we engage regularly in the arts, we actually help to build that cognitive reserve.

We're helping to build that resilience of the brain.

In fact, some of my colleagues in Chile actually looked at people's brain age.

So they were actually showing that people who are more regularly engaged doing arts activities actually have a younger brain age.

They have better connectivity between regions of the brain that are vulnerable to aging.

So I think this is important when we're thinking about cognition in all of its guises, whether it's symptoms that are being brought on by menopause or if it's also symptoms that are to do with cognitive decline.

It really is a case of use it or lose it.

And when we do arts, we're using so many parts of the brain.

It's a really lovely kind of whole brain workout.

So generally the results are pretty similar.

They are slightly more muted online to in person.

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