Why Humans Love Music: Brain Imaging Reveals Secrets of Rewarding Songs

What makes music so rewarding to humans? And what makes us decide that we like a song that we've never heard before? A new study pinpoints the specific brain activity that makes new music seem rewarding to humans, and predicts whether a person is likely to purchase that music to listen to it in the future.

The new findings, which were published in the journal Science, examined participants who underwent functional resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning while listening to previously unheard of music excerpts. During the course of the study, researchers saw activity in the nucleus accumbens, which is the pleasure center of the brain. It plays a huge role in reward, laughter, addiction, aggression, fear and the placebo effect.

"What makes music so emotionally powerful is the creation of expectations," said Valorie Salimpoor, lead investigator, in a press release. "Activity in the nucleus accumbens is an indicator that expectations were met or surpassed, and in our study we found that the more activity we see in this brain area while people are listening to music, the more money they are willing to spend."

The researchers didn't just find activity in the nucleus accumbens, though. They also noticed that this part of the brain interacts with the auditory cortex, an area of the brain that stores information about the sounds and music that we have been exposed to in the past. The more rewarding a certain musical piece was, the greater that "cross-talk" between the two different regions. Similar interactions were also seen between the nucleus accumbuns and other brain areas.

The findings suggest that the brain actually assigns value to music through the interaction of dopaminergic reward circuitry, which is involved in reinforcing behaviors that are necessary for our survival--such as eating. In addition, it revealed why people like different music; each person has a uniquely shaped auditory cortex which is formed based on the sounds and music heard during his life. This, in turn, explains why the brain "likes" one type of music and dislikes another.

Want to hear the music that the participants listened to? You can check them out here.