By the time Bette Loomis was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment in 2015, she had been experiencing considerable forgetfulness and getting lost in familiar places for nearly two years. Her doctor prescribed galantamine, a medication used to treat cognitive decline, which she still takes. In 2023, at the suggestion of her nurse practitioner, Loomis decided to try an unusual intervention: She joined a study at Emory University in Atlanta that was investigating the effects of adapted Argentine tango on older adults with neurologic disorders. Three times a week, Loomis participated in tango classes that included Emory students as well as older adults; the program lasted a year—and Loomis loved it.
“Trying to remember the steps was tricky, but a lot of times the Emory kids had trouble too,” says Loomis, 79, a retired nurse practitioner who lives in Atlanta. “It was invigorating, and it helped my memory, coordination, movement, and balance. It made me feel mentally sharper, and it made me happy.” After the yearlong tango program ended, Loomis’ scores on cognition tests went up considerably.
It's no secret that regular physical activity like dance is beneficial. Dance also has a variety of positive effects on brain function. “It's like exercise, but it demands a cognitive load on top of that,” says Madeleine E. Hackney, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine and a research scientist at the Atlanta VA Medical Center. “You learn a lot of different steps and put them into play, which challenges your attention and memory. There's also spatial navigating in relation to other people and places.”
Besides challenging memory and thinking skills, along with mobility and coordination, “dance requires integration of different parts of the brain,” says Elinor Harrison, PhD, a professional dancer for 30 years who is now a movement science researcher and lecturer in dance at Washington University in St. Louis.
Because dancing can improve balance, coordination, motor skills, and proprioception (being able to determine where your body is in space), it can benefit people with impaired movement related to Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis (MS). A study in a 2024 issue of the European Journal of Sport Science found that people with MS who participated in dance classes—including moving to rock music or learning the basics of ballroom dancing or Latin American dances—twice a week for 12 weeks demonstrated significant improvements in mobility, attention, and working memory.
“Through dance, people with Parkinson's may be able to bypass compromised areas of the brain and access intact areas,” says Anjali Gera, MD, a movement disorders neurologist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, who has given dance classes to her patients with Parkinson's disease. “When they are in class, they are walking and turning much better without that slowness and hesitation we often see in the office. Exercise such as dance may slow down the progression of Parkinson's disease. Medications don't do that.” According to a study in the 2021 issue of Brain Sciences, people with Parkinson's disease who participated in dance classes once a week for three years had less motor function decline compared with a control group that experienced the expected progression of symptoms.
Brain Boost
A study published in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity in 2022 compared the effects of six months of 90 minutes of ballroom dancing twice a week with 90 minutes of treadmill walking twice a week among older adults who were at risk of developing dementia. “People in the dance group performed better on tests of executive function and memory and had reduced loss of volume in the hippocampus [a part of the brain responsible for memory and learning],” explains Joe Verghese, MD, FAAN, co-author of the study and professor and chair of neurology at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University in New York.
These findings build upon those from a seminal study in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003. Researchers examined the connection between participation in various cognitive and physical activities and the risk of dementia in adults over age 75. Among all the physical activities, dancing was the only one associated with a reduced risk of dementia. This may be because “dancing is a complex physical activity with various cognitive, social, and physical components—the components all work together,” says study co-author Dr. Verghese. “It involves learning new movement patterns, which create new connections in the brain and strengthen existing networks.”
“With dance, you have a lot of cross talk between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, which strengthens the connection between them,” says Marie Collier, MD, FAAN, a neurologist with Sevaro Health in East Brunswick, NJ. For example, dance requires analytical and logistical thinking, which occur in the left hemisphere, as well as creativity, appreciation of the music's rhythm and melody, and spatial cognition, which are controlled by the right hemisphere. As a result, Dr. Collier says, “you have this whole-brain functioning.”
Dancing also may protect the brain by promoting the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that helps with the growth and survival of neurons, says Dr. Collier. Besides enhancing neuroplasticity (the brain's ability to form new connections and pathways in response to internal or external stimuli), BDNF protects against neurodegeneration, she adds. A study in a 2018 issue of PLOS One compared the effects of a six-month dance program (a mix of line dancing, jazz, rock, Latin American dance, and square dancing) and conventional fitness training (including riding a stationary bike, lifting weights, and stretching) among older adults. While both interventions increased the participants’ fitness levels, only dancing led to significant increases in blood levels of BDNF and volume in key brain areas, as seen on MRI scans.
Other benefits of dance include improved attention span, short-term memory, and multitasking. In a 2023 review in BMC Geriatrics, researchers examined the effects of dance therapy in 10 studies involving 984 participants ages 55 and older with mild cognitive impairment. The researchers found that dance therapy was associated with improvements in global cognitive function, memory, executive function, attention, language, and mental health.
In recent years, researchers have looked more deeply into dancing's effects on the brain, sometimes in real time. (There's a field called the neuroscience of dance.) Julia Basso, PhD, director of the Embodied Brain Lab at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, began using mobile electroencephalography (EEG) in her research: Dancers wear caps that contain electrodes and backpacks that house the control units and battery packs. Dr. Basso also combines mobile EEG with somatic physiology sensors to get a better sense of the brain-body connections as people dance.
As for ballroom dancing and other forms of partner dancing, Dr. Basso found that they “enhance interbrain synchrony between two individuals—their brain rhythms start to coordinate with each other.”
Feel-Good Factor
Even a single dance session has been found to improve mood, says Dr. Basso. “It has to do with the release of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin,” she says. Like other forms of physical activity, dance reduces stress and stimulates the release of endorphins, brain chemicals that relieve pain and enhance feelings of well-being. It also improves confidence and self-esteem, says Dr. Hackney.
This is true for anyone who dances, but for those with neurologic disorders it may be especially important. “It can give people a sense of agency over their movements,” says Dr. Harrison.
When the Emory study ended, Bette Loomis asked for and received special permission to resume the classes this year. “I love to dance, and I have more energy after doing tango,” says Loomis. “It makes me feel good physically and mentally.”
Get Started on the Dance Floor
Consult your neurologist or physical therapist to determine an appropriate form of dance for you. “It needs to be safe, and somebody may need to assist you with balance,” says Joe Verghese, MD, FAAN, professor and chair of neurology at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University in New York.
Pick a type. Consider what kind of dance you're interested in—ballroom, modern, ballet, jazz, tap, salsa, tango, folk dancing, line dancing, or another type—to help narrow your search. For those with balance or stability challenges, adapted dance programs are options.
Do some research. Look online or ask your neurologist or physical therapist for suggestions. You may be able to find local dance classes geared to your condition through a foundation or patient organization. For example, Dance for PD offers a variety of dance classes both in person and online.
Speak up. If you attend class in person, tell the instructor what challenge you want to work on, whether it's balance or remembering steps, advises Madeleine E. Hackney, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine. That way, the teacher can give you extra attention if you need it or pair you with someone who can help you.
