Neuroscience of Music and Musicology

Functional Neuroanatomy of Music Processing

Central Auditory Processing (University of Minnesota)

Listening to Sound: What and Where Pathways (UCSF Health)

V1, primary visual cortex; A1, primary auditory cortex; IT, inferior temporal region; ST, superior temporal region; PPC, posterior parietal cortex; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. (Simplified from refs. 4,5 and combined with an existing scheme from the visual system  (Rauschecker and Scott, Nature Neuroscience, 2009)

This expanded scheme closes the loop between speech perception and production and proposes a common computational structure for space processing and speech control in the postero-dorsal auditory stream. (a) Antero-ventral (green) and postero-dorsal (red) streams originating from the auditory belt. The postero-dorsal stream interfaces with premotor areas and pivots around inferior parietal cortex, where a quick sketch of sensory event information is compared with a predictive efference copy90 of motor plans. (b) In one direction, the model performs a forward mapping: object information, such as speech, is decoded in the antero-ventral stream all the way to category-invariant inferior frontal cortex (area 45), and is transformed into motor-articulatory representations (area 44 and ventral PMC), whose activation is transmitted to the IPL (and posterior superior temporal cortex) as an efference copy. (c) In reverse direction, the model performs an inverse mapping, whereby attention- or intention-related changes in the IPL66,67 influence the selection of context-dependent action programs in PFC and PMC. Both types of dynamic model are testable using techniques with high temporal precision (for example, magnetoencephalography in humans96 or single-unit studies in monkeys) that allow determination of the order of events in the respective neural systems. AC, auditory cortex; STS, superior temporal sulcus; IFC, inferior frontal cortex, PMC, premotor cortex; IPL, inferior parietal lobule; CS, central sulcus. Numbers correspond to Brodmann areas. (Rauschecker and Scott, Nature Neuroscience, 2009)

Auditory Motor Pathways 

(Beat and Meter Processing) 

The main pathways underlying autonomic and muscular responses to music

Note that the auditory cortex (AC) also projects to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the cingulate cortex (projections not shown). Moreover, the amygdala (AMYG), OFC and cingulate cortex send numerous projections to the hypothalamus (not shown) and thus also exert influence on the endocrine system, including the neuroendocrine motor system. ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; CN, cochlear nuclei; IC, inferior colliculus; M1, primary motor cortex; MCC, middle cingulate cortex; MGB, medial geniculate body; NAc, nucleus accumbens; PMC, premotor cortex; RCZ, rostral cingulate zone; VN, vestibular nuclei (Koelsch, 2014). 

Schema demonstrating brain regions involved in learning and performance of music (Bonakdarpour, 2019)

Brainstem, Thalamus, and Insula, Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC), and Somatosensory Cortex Area 3) Connections are Demonstrated (Mayer et al., 2006)

Role of Anteior Insula in Perception (from Sterzer & Kleinschmidt, 2010)

Musicology

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