Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart drums at AARP meeting

Longtime Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart came to New Orleans with a message for thousands of attendees at the AARP’s national convention: Music has therapeutic powers.

Hart spoke about the importance of music and playing instruments. He led a drum circle with hundreds of drummers at the convention of the advocacy group for older Americans, which ended on Saturday.

Hart and neurologist Adam Gazzaley, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, spoke about research showing music has a positive effect on the brain and how playing music can help offset the mental declines of aging.

Throughout the convention attendees could visit a music-making pavilion.