Neuroscience and Music Perception

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

This study uses electrophysiological recordings and generative music models to show that musicians have more structured and left-hemisphere biased neural encoding of music compared to non-musicians.

TMS-EEG reveals causal dynamics of the premotor cortex during musical improvisation

This study uses TMS-EEG to show that during musical improvisation, the premotor cortex shows reduced excitability and more variable response timings compared to sight-reading and rest.

A model of rhythm production and rhythmic auditory stimulation in healthy and Parkinsonian basal ganglia

This paper develops a model of rhythm production and rhythmic auditory stimulation in Parkinson's disease, showing that dopamine depletion leads to increased tempo drift and interval variability in rhythmic tasks.

Sound preferences in mice are sex-dependent

This study shows that early sound exposure influences sound preferences in mice, with sex-dependent effects on behavior and neural activity.

An ancient evolutionary calculus for attention signaling retained in modern music

The paper introduces a calculus of attention (CES) to measure musical quality and attention signaling in human and animal vocalizations, showing high stability in professional performances.

Decoding of frequency modulated sweeps by core and belt neurons in the alert macaque auditory cortex.

The paper investigates how core and belt auditory cortical areas in alert macaques encode frequency-modulated sweeps, finding that spike timing is more informative than firing rate and no hierarchical processing advantage exists for these stimuli.

Neurophysiological correlates of short-term recognition of sounds: Insights from magnetoencephalography

This study uses MEG to investigate short-term auditory recognition by analyzing neural responses to same versus different sounds, finding distinct patterns in early and late negative components.

Sound offset responses become highly informative in the auditory cortex

The paper analyzes offset responses across auditory brain regions in mice, finding that cortical offset responses provide more accurate sound encoding than subcortical ones.

Auditory midbrain encodes training-induced plasticity in soundlocalization behavior

This study shows that training-induced plasticity in the auditory midbrain, specifically the inferior colliculus, supports sound localization behavior in ferrets with altered spatial cues.

Modeling neural coding in the auditory midbrain with high resolution and accuracy

The paper introduces ICNet, a deep learning model that accurately simulates neural dynamics in the auditory midbrain across various sounds, including speech.

How musicality enhances top-down and bottom-up selective attention: Insights from precise separation of simultaneous neural responses

This study uses frequency-tagging and machine learning to separate neural responses to mixed melodies, showing that musicality improves top-down attention and reduces bottom-up distractions.

Neural correlates of perceptual biases in duration perception

The paper investigates how perceptual biases in duration perception, specifically sequential dependence and central tendency, are reflected in neural activity using EEG and a Bayesian model.

Age and Learning Shapes Sound Representations in Auditory Cortex During Adolescence

This study shows that adolescent mice have less accurate and slower sound processing in auditory cortex during a difficult auditory discrimination task compared to adults, due to immature cortical representations and weaker cognitive control.

The Slowest Timescales of Neural Synchronization Reveal the Strongest Influence of Auditory Distraction

This paper measures neural synchronization to different sound timescales in human listeners to determine how distraction affects auditory processing.

Individual differences in the effects of musical familiarity and musical features on brain activity during relaxation

The paper investigates how individual differences in relaxation responses to music are linked to brain activity patterns, finding distinct neural and behavioral clusters based on music familiarity and features.

Using time-resolved auditory frequency tagging to capture self-preferential processing of the own (vs other) name

The paper develops and validates a time-resolved EEG frequency-tagging task to measure self-preferential processing of the own name, finding a self-preferential effect using this novel approach.

Voice identity invariance by anterior temporal lobe neurons

This study shows that neurons in the macaque anterior temporal lobe encode voice identity invariance through dynamic representations, highlighting the ATL's role in integrating perceptual voice features into identity representations.

Response-driven Serial Dependence: When Response Mode Consistency Matters More than Shared Memory Encoding

This study investigates serial dependence by dissociating perceptual and decisional components across tasks with varying response modes, finding that consistent motor responses, not shared memory, drive sequential biases.

Robust representation and non-linear spectral integration of simple and complex harmonic sounds in layers 4 and 2/3 of primary auditory cortex

The paper investigates harmonic sound processing in auditory cortex layers, finding harmonic-sensitive neurons in A1 L4 with robust spectral integration and non-linear processing.

Where is the melody? Spontaneous attention orchestrates melody formation during polyphonic music listening

The paper investigates how spontaneous attention influences melody formation during polyphonic music listening using EEG and transformer models, finding that attentional bias shapes neural encoding and aligns with different theoretical models.

Slow-varying normalization explains auditory steady-state masking interactions in human EEG

This study investigates auditory steady-state masking interactions in human EEG and finds that a slow-varying normalization model explains the suppression patterns observed with closely spaced modulation frequencies.

Deep Neural Networks Explain Spiking Activity in Auditory Cortex

The paper shows that deep neural networks trained on speech audio can predict spiking activity in auditory cortex neurons at fine time scales better than traditional models and untrained networks.

Tempo-dependent selective enhancement of neural responses at the beat frequency can be mimicked by both an oscillator and an evoked model

The paper shows that neural responses to rhythm are selectively enhanced at the beat rate, which can be explained by both entrainment and evoked response models.

Predictive encoding of auditory sequences in the human prefrontal cortex

The paper investigates how the human prefrontal cortex encodes auditory sequences to predict future events, showing distinct roles for orbitofrontal and lateral PFC regions.

Auditory-motor synchronization determines the use of predictions in music perception

The paper investigates how auditory-motor synchronization influences neural tracking of rhythmic and melodic predictions during music listening, finding stronger tracking of rhythmic predictions in individuals with higher synchronization.

Dynamic representation of sound locations during task engagement in marmoset auditory cortex

The paper investigates how marmoset auditory cortex neurons respond to sound locations inside and outside their receptive fields during task engagement, finding increased firing rates outside RFs in certain brain areas.

Primary auditory cortex is necessary for the acquisition and expression of categorical behavior

This study shows that the primary auditory cortex is necessary for categorizing auditory stimuli and maintaining consistent behavior during learning.

Increased Callosal Thickness in Early Trained Opera Singers

This study finds trend-level differences in callosal thickness between opera singers and non-singers, with early vocal training correlating with thicker callosal regions.

Walking selectively modulates behaviorally relevant auditory change responses in humans

This study shows that walking in humans reduces sensitivity to fine auditory temporal changes but preserves some auditory responses, revealing how locomotion modulates auditory processing.

Music Scaffolds Visual Statistical Sequence Learning Through Network-Level Reorganization in the Brain

This study shows that music enhances visual statistical learning by reorganizing large-scale brain networks, improving sequence processing through schema-guided memory and reduced explicit control.