Your favorite music can send your brain to a pleasure overload

Everyone knows that one of their favorite songs will play, even when they’re in the car, at a concert, or sitting on the couch.That’s what has it Really It floods your system with good chords, pleasant emotions, and pleasant memories in it, makes your hair stand on the edge, and even sends tremors or “chills” to your spine. About half of people get chills when they listen to music. France-based neuroscientists are now using EEG to associate chills with multiple brain regions involved in the activation of reward and pleasure systems.The results are published in Neuroscience Frontier..

Thibault Chabin and colleagues at the University of Franche-Comte, Bourgogne-Françon, Besancon EEG, scanned the brains of 18 French participants who regularly experience chills when listening to their favorite songs. The questionnaire indicated when they experienced the chills and was asked to assess their degree of joy.

“Participants in our study were able to pinpoint the” chills “moments of the song, but most musical chills are not just the predicted moments, but many of the extracts. It happened in part, “says Chabin.

When participants experienced chills, Chavin was in the orbitofrontal cortex (the area involved in emotional processing), the supplementary motor area (middle).brain Areas involved in motor control) and right temporal lobe (areas on the right side of the brain involved in auditory processing and listening to music). These areas work together to process music, trigger the brain’s reward system, and release dopamine, a “pleasant” hormone and neurotransmitter. Coupled with the pleasant expectations of the favorite part of the song, this creates the tingling cold you experience. This is a physiological response that is thought to indicate a high degree of cortical connectivity.

“The fact that EEG can measure this phenomenon provides an opportunity to study in other contexts in more natural and within-group scenarios,” commented Chabin. “This represents a good perspective on musical emotional research.”

EEG is a non-invasive, high-precision technique that uses sensors located across the surface of the scalp to scan currents caused by brain activity. Experience of musical chills increases or decreases low-frequency electrical signals called “theta activities”, a type of activity associated with successful memory performance in the context of high rewards and musical appreciation. Area of ​​the brain Involved in music processing.

“Unlike heavy neuroimaging techniques such as PET scans and fMRI, classical EEG can be moved out of the laboratory to naturalistic scenarios,” says Chabin. “The most interesting thing is that music does not seem to bring any biological benefits to us, but the implications of dopamine and reward systems in the processing of musical joy suggest the functioning of music’s ancestors. . “

The function of this ancestor may be in the period we spend in anticipation of the “cold-inducing” part of music. While we wait, our brains are busy predicting the future and releasing dopamine. Evolutionarily speaking, being able to predict what will happen next is essential to survival.

Why do we need to continue studying chills?

“We want to measure how the brains and physiologic activities of multiple participants are combined in a natural and social musical setting,” says Chabin. “The joy of music is a very interesting phenomenon, and it is worth investigating further to understand why music is so rewarding and to figure out why. musics It is indispensable to human life. “

How the study was done:

The study was conducted with 18 healthy participants (11 women and 7 men). Participants were recruited through posters on campus and university hospitals. Their average age was 40, sensitive to musical rewards, and frequently experienced chills. They had various musical abilities.

A high-density EEG scan was performed when participants listened to a 90-second excerpt of the most enjoyable song for 15 minutes. While listening, participants were asked to assess the subjective joy and indicate when they felt “chills.” A total of 305 chills were reported, each lasting an average of 8.75 seconds.These findings mean an increase Brain activity In areas previously associated with music enjoyment in PET and fMRI studies.

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