Music, brain, and memory: A neuropsychological approach

The topic of musical memory, its cognitive specificity and neural independence, has long been largely disregarded in scientific research. Thus, neuropsychological studies about music have remained largely focused on the psychoacoustic dimensions and elementary aspects of musical perception for many years. Since the early '00s, clinical and experimental neuroscience, starting from cognitive models of human memory, began to provide new elements concerning the impact of musical practices on memory, and the neural specificities of the memory mechanisms involved in listening to and practicing music. After recalling the contribution of foundational work on the neuropsychology of music, we give some examples of studies showing how musical practice has a very clear impact on the brain networks related to memory, and what the clinical consequences of these results are.