Programme
The course proposes an introduction to the cognitive neuroscience of music. We will focus on the neural basis for musical perception and production, on brain plasticity associated with musical training and expertise, and on neural mechanisms behind musical pleasure. In the first lecture, the professors will give a broad overview of the domain and some of the main methodological approaches. In the following meetings, students will be asked to present on specific topics of interest, focusing their presentations around 1-2 key papers that they will select, with input from the professors. All students in the class will be expected to read these papers and contribute to the discussion during each class. Discussions are designed to be a critical analysis of the methods, findings and interpretations of those papers, with the goal of generating ideas about new experiments or questions.