Cerebral Organization of Music Processing

Abstract

This chapter presents a broad panorama of the current knowledge concerning the anatomical and functional basis of music processing in the healthy brain. Neuroimaging studies developed over the past 20 years provide evidence that music processing takes place in widely distributed neural networks. Here, attention is focused on core brain networks implicated in music processing, emphasizing the anatomical and functional interactions between cortical and subcortical areas within auditory-frontal networks, auditory-motor networks, and auditory-limbic networks. Finally, the authors review recent studies investigating how brain networks organize themselves in a naturalistic music listening context. Collectively, this robust body of literature demonstrates that music processing requires timely coordination of large-scale cognitive, motor, and limbic brain networks, setting the stage for a new generation of music neuroscience research on the dynamic organization of brain networks underlying music processing.