Innovative research examines how musical pleasure leads to physiological stimuli.

We all know that music can alter our mood or emotion, but scientists are researching exactly how it affects us on a physiological level. The new study found that the enjoyment we get from listening to music releases dopamine, which in turn causes changes to heart rate, breathing and body temperature.

The study was conducted by the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital and published in the prestigious journal, Nature Neuroscience. It suggests that while music is an abstract form and has no tangible ‘value’, its value goes beyond simple listening-pleasure.

“Music is unique in the sense that we can measure all reward phases in real-time, as it progresses from baseline neutral to anticipation to peak pleasure,” said lead researcher Valorie Salimpoor. “It is generally a great challenge to examine dopamine activity during both the anticipation and the consumption phase of a reward. Both phases are captured together online by the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner, which provides us with a unique assessment of the contributions of each brain region at different time points.”

Dopamine is a chemical found in the human brain which is responsible for biological behaviour. Its release was found...