Emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant music correlate with activity in paralimbic brain regions
Abstract
Neural correlates of the often-powerful emotional responses to music are poorly understood. Here we used positron emission tomography to examine cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes related to affective responses to music. Ten volunteers were scanned while listening to six versions of a novel musical passage varying systematically in degree of dissonance. Reciprocal CBF covariations were observed in several distinct paralimbic and neocortical regions as a function of dissonance and of perceived pleasantness/unpleasantness. The findings suggest that music may recruit neural mechanisms similar to those previously associated with pleasant/unpleasant emotional states, but different from those underlying other components of music perception, and other emotions such as fear.
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Music listening prior to the experience of stress may add to, facilitate, or increase subsequent HPA axis activation by a staggered activation of a partly shared neuronal network.
“It appears that music listening prior to the experience of stress may add to, facilitate, or increase subsequent HPA axis activation by a staggered activation of a partly shared neuronal network.”
From The Effect of Music on the Human Stress Response (2013) · cites this paper as [79]
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- Authors
- Blood, A. J., Zatorre, R. J., Bermudez, P., & Evans, A. C.
- Affiliations
- Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Blood, Anne J.
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 1999-04
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 382-387
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- DOI
- 10.1038/7299
- OpenAlex
- W2105771114
- Cited by
- 1,097
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 36 · 2023: 49 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 29 · 2020: 67 · 2019: 48 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 42 · 2016: 43 · 2015: 73 · 2014: 66 · 2013: 67 · 2012: 47
- FWCI
- 9.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Music Therapy and Health
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- music and emotion, emotional response to music, dissonance, perceived pleasantness, unpleasantness, paralimbic regions, cerebral blood flow, music perception, neural correlates of emotion
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Cerebrovascular Circulation, Emotions, Female, Frontal Lobe, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Limbic System, Male, Music, Pilot Projects, Temporal Lobe, Tomography, Emission-Computed, Neocortex
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