Neural Correlates of Music Perception and Cognition

The complexity of mental operations relative to music perception and cognition provides a unique field of research for the neuropsychological approaches, the most up-to-date studies revealing a vast neural activity involved in music processing. The present paper aims to draw up a synthesis on the neural correlate of music processing, based on a series of clinical studies or on neuroimaging data. The paper discusses aspects referring to neural substrate corresponding to the perception of sound pitch and duration, as well as to intonation, rhythm and metric relations of sounds. Results have shown that music processing involves a vast network of cortical and sub-cortical structures, belonging to both brain hemispheres.