69. Listening to Music Releases Dopamine in the Brain

Have you ever listened to a piece of music and experienced intense pleasure, even chills? Valorie Salimpoor (2011) and her team conducted research that shows that listening to, or even anticipating, music can release the neurotransmitter dopamine.

The researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) scans, fMRI, and psychophysiological measures such as heart rate to measure reactions while people listened to music. The participants provided music that they said gave them intense pleasure and chills. The range of music included classical, folk, jazz, electronica, rock, pop, tango, and more.

Pleasure vs. Anticipated Pleasure

Salimpoor’s team saw the same pattern of brain and body activity when people were listening to their music as they saw when people feel euphoria and craving when they get a reward. The experience of pleasure corresponded with dopamine release in one part of the brain (the striatal dopaminergic system). When people were anticipating a pleasurable part of the music, there was a dopamine release in a different part of the brain (the nucleus accumbens).