The impact of musical expertise on disentangled and contextual neural encoding of music revealed by generative music models

Abstract

Music perception involves the intricate processing of individual notes and their contextual relationships within a piece. However, how the brain encodes and organizes these features, particularly in relation to musical expertise, remains unclear. Using noninvasive and invasive electrophysiological recordings alongside generative music models, we reveal that musicians exhibit neural encoding that is more attuned to the separation and integration of complex musical structures, with a pronounced left-hemispheric bias compared to non-musicians. Invasive recordings further highlight a hierarchical and spatially organized representation of musical features and context across brain regions. These findings advance our understanding of how the brain processes music and the role of musical training in shaping auditory cognition.