The Neuroscience Surrounding Feel Good Music
Exploring Dopamine, Songs, and Emotional Arousal
Music is a big part of many of our lives. When we go through the trials and tribulations of a particularly traumatic circumstance, we might find ourselves hunkered down, listening to a song that encapsulates how we feel.
We might be feeling exceptionally well at times also, riding on a temporary high and appreciating that positive bubble while it lasts.
We might listen to a whimsical tune or two, amplifying or maintaining those feelings of momentary euphoria, and you’re able to carry on with your day, motivated to keep going.
Either way, music is noted to be an incredibly creative way for our brains to process and understand information, especially when such information is emotionally charged and imprinted in our minds in the years that follow.
Despite this, music is shrouded in a strange sense of mystery since it’s not a mechanism that our caveman ancestors had to develop out of necessity as they did for sleep, food, and shelter.
Music is a pretty rewarding activity, even if it wasn’t that important for our immediate survival.
The desire to keep going, to satisfy our carnal pleasures, is often centralized on various feel-good chemicals, including dopamine. It’s the natural high that is produced during moments of utter happiness like pleasuring others, enjoying a good concert, and many more.
A really fascinating study in 2011 was conducted at McGill University that examined how listening to music made certain people feel.
From an initial pool of 217 participants, this group was narrowed down to only eight participants, who pretty much reported feeling the same way when listening to specific songs, regardless of where they listened to said music.
Using both positron emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI), the eight participants were scanned across three sessions as they listened to their music.
Afterwards, the participants filled out a questionnaire to rate how much delight the music provided them.
Overall, the PET scans suggested that dopamine was released during peak moments of emotional arousal while the fMRI identified distinct differences for the timing and structures associated with dopamine release.
For example, the PET scans were able to identify that dopamine was released in the striate nucleus. The striate nucleus, alternatively known as the corpus striatum, is known for a variety of complex functions but is best well-known for its major role surrounding voluntary motor planning and reward system generation.
As well, the fMRI was able to identify that the caudate nucleus, a part of the striate nucleus, was most active when approaching peak arousal. However, the nucleus accumbens, also a part of the striate nucleus, is an area that primarily mediates rewarding behaviour. The nucleus accumbens was most active during the actual peak itself.
In layman’s terms, our brain has distinct and specific responses when anticipating a pleasurable response versus actually going through the experience itself. However, despite these distinctions, these different areas of the brain work together to release dopamine.
Listening to music can be so fascinating, especially the profound influences it has on our brains.
As Maria August von Trapp once wrote,
“Music — what a powerful instrument, what a mighty weapon!”
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