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Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion
Open accessAbstract
We used positron emission tomography to study neural mechanisms underlying intensely pleasant emotional responses to music. Cerebral blood flow changes were measured in response to subject-selected music that elicited the highly pleasurable experience of "shivers-down-the-spine" or "chills." Subjective reports of chills were accompanied by changes in heart rate, electromyogram, and respiration. As intensity of these chills increased, cerebral blood flow increases and decreases were observed in brain regions thought to be involved in reward/motivation, emotion, and arousal, including ventral striatum, midbrain, amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, and ventral medial prefrontal cortex. These brain structures are known to be active in response to other euphoria-inducing stimuli, such as food, sex, and drugs of abuse. This finding links music with biologically relevant, survival-related stimuli via their common recruitment of brain circuitry involved in pleasure and reward.
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“Given that music listening can trigger activity in brain regions linked to the experience of (intense) emotions [8,34–36]”
From The Effect of Music on the Human Stress Response (2013) · cites this paper as [8]
In the citing paper
“Music has been shown to beneficially affect stress-related physiological [4–6], as well as cognitive [7], and emotional processes [8,9].”
From The Effect of Music on the Human Stress Response (2013) · cites this paper as [8]
In the citing paper
“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 [8]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Blood, A. J., & Zatorre, R. J.
- Affiliations
- Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (CA)
- ORCID
- Zatorre, Robert J.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2001-09-25
- Volume
- 98
- Issue
- 20
- Pages
- 11818-11823
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC58814
- OpenAlex
- W2151422895
- Cited by
- 2,814
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 95 · 2025: 151 · 2024: 131 · 2023: 142 · 2022: 147 · 2021: 152 · 2020: 169 · 2019: 163 · 2018: 177 · 2017: 132 · 2016: 124 · 2015: 164 · 2014: 140 · 2013: 160 · 2012: 116
- FWCI
- 13.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Music Therapy and Health
- Keywords
- music pleasure, chills, reward, emotions, cerebral blood flow, ventral striatum, amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, midbrain, arousal, subjective emotional responses, heart rate, respiration, electromyography
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Amygdala, Brain, Cerebrovascular Circulation, Emotions, Female, Heart Rate, Hippocampus, Humans, Functional Laterality, Male, Music, Organ Specificity, Regression Analysis, Respiration, Reward, Tomography, Emission-Computed, Prefrontal Cortex
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