The Biological Effects of Music on the Brain

[Health and Medicine]

r3almonster:

Our brain “includes several distinct dopamine systems, one of which plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior.”. This is quite fascinating that the availability of this information is present within our society, also revealing, the major record labels in the Music Industry are well aware of this.

In an article published by The Nuero Organization at McGill University by Anita Kar, states “The team at The Neuro measured dopamine release in response to music that elicited “chills”, changes in skin conductance, heart rate, breathing, and temperature that were correlated with pleasurability ratings of the music. ‘Chills’ or ‘musical frisson’ is a well established marker of peak emotional responses to music.”

If one was unaware, you probably aren’t now because these scientists have proven that music has a biological effect on our physical bodies.

Kar also adds "PET and fMRI brain imaging techniques, revealed that dopamine release is greater for pleasurable versus neutral music, and that levels of release are correlated with the extent of emotional arousal and pleasurability ratings. Dopamine is known to play a pivotal role in establishing and maintaining behavior that is biologically necessary.”

We are literally, becoming stimulated at a deeply internal level, from every song that’s brought us joy in our lives, resulting in the development emotional and behavioral patterns to embed into our psyche. This may come to no surprise to some of us who’ve re-lived a heart break when listening to a mid 2000’s r&b song. Also consider, us humans are developing, subconsciously, a rewarding/pleasurable sensation to certain songs which causes us to phase lock at least momentarily into a specific frequency.  

Dr. Robert Zatorre, neuroscientist at The Neuro. "These findings provide neurochemical evidence that intense emotional responses to music involve ancient reward circuitry in the brain,”….“To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that an abstract reward such as music can lead to dopamine release.”

It should be noted that music, has been a highly influential factor in every single culture regardless of geographic location. Our mental consent has been imprinted into the collective psyche as a human family for thousands of years. If this is the first abstract reward to lead to a dopamine release (in contemporary studies), other objects have the potential to do so as well.

"The study also showed that two different brain circuits are involved in anticipation and experience, respectively: one linking to cognitive and motor systems, and hence prediction, the other to the limbic system, and hence the emotional part of the brain.”
 
If this study proves anything beside what I’ve eluded to above, at bare minimum, music has a profound effect on our brain as well as the rest of our physical body(at least) . I implore you to further research the effects of music which is major influence within our lives daily!

By Andrew Millan

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