AllHealth Network’s Community Engagement Team worked with DSST: Cole High School students during Fall 2024 for a mentorship program. This blog post was written by a senior, Desiree.
Music can be defined as “vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.” (Google)
People listen to music every day, but many don’t think about its effects on a listener. For example, have you ever wondered why your favorite song is your favorite? Or why music cheers you up when you are feeling down? If you have, then you are not alone. Music has been found to produce a pleasure hormone called dopamine. Dopamine is released when the brain expects a reward, such as listening to music, shopping, or enjoying your favorite food.
So how does the body respond to music?
A Wired article by Jonah Lehrer on January 19th, 2011 titled “The Neuroscience of Music” analyzes music’s effect on the body and why and where these feelings come from. The article discusses how music makes us feel and the possible physical connections music plays on our bodies. According to the Wired article, when we listen to music, our pupils will dilate, our pulse and blood pressure rise, a special part of our brain called the cerebellum becomes active, and blood is redirected to our legs which is why we tend to tap our feet when listening to music. These are all things associated with the production of dopamine while listening to music.
Why do these things happen when listening to music?
This question was investigated via an experiment done by researchers in Montreal. The study occurred when scientists screened 217 individuals who responded to an advertisement asking for people who felt chills when they listened to music. After they had their group, they narrowed it down to ten individuals. They then picked from that group of ten, leaving only about three or four people who most reliably got chills from music.
After this, the remaining individuals were able to bring in the music that they listened to, and then their brain activity was monitored as they listened to their favorite music. They measured brain activity via PET scanning and fMRI which gave them pictures of brain activity. What they found is that based on the ligand-based PET, “music triggers the release of dopamine in both the dorsal and ventral striatum.” (Wired) They say that this isn’t surprising because those regions of the brain have been associated with pleasure, so happiness begins in those sections of the brain. This means that when we listen to music that we enjoy, the sections of the brain that produce dopamine, the chemical for pleasure and happiness, begin to grow abundant in the brain, leaving us feeling happy after listening to a song.
The scientists who did this experiment went even further to analyze why we don’t get bored of listening to either the same song or music in general. To find out why, the scientists conducted experiments where they analyzed the dopamine neurons right before the subjects experienced chills from the songs that they were listening to. They called the section in between firings the “anticipatory phase,” which is when the individual anticipates their favorite part of the song before it even comes up. They found that in between firings of the dopamine neurons, there was “greater dopamine activity in the caudate.” (Wired) This is because the brain was anticipating the next time the neurons would fire to get the pleasure it once received from the music you were just listening to. This would explain why we find things such as alarm clocks annoying.
According to Wired, neurons adapt quickly to predictable awards, so you will get bored if the pattern of a song is predictable. So, by listening to music, your brain doesn’t get bored as quickly, this is because “the longer we are denied the pattern we expect, the greater the emotional release when the pattern returns.” (Wired) So as long as our brain continues to find the patterns in a song interesting, we will in return like the song that we just listened to whether it be a new song or one of your favorite songs, your neurons will continue to fire and you will continue to produce dopamine in your brain to feel the pleasure from that song.
So, next time you turn on your favorite song, take into consideration that your brain is producing that “feeling good” hormone of dopamine that keeps it in your playlist for the next time you want to listen to it.
