What happens in your brain when you listen to your favorite music?

When we hear a song we love, our brains are altered.

It is more or less easy to predict what kind of movies are going to please most of the public, and it is not complicated to do the same with books or video games.

However, with music it seems that this does not happen so much: we all have in mind pieces of music that, despite the fact that they are nothing like what we usually prefer to listen to, catch us. That's why it's curious that the favorite songsIn all their variety and whatever they are, produce a similar effect on the brain of the listener.

In fact, music can define, in a way, how we are and how we think, as we saw in the articles:

• "What music do intelligent people listen to?" and....

• "Music and personality: how are they linked?".

Music and memory

Thanks to brain activity monitoring systems, we now know a little more about what happens in our nervous system when we listen to songs we like. The results show typical activation patterns that are repeated every time we go through the experience.

No matter the genre and virtually no matter the durationThe music we find enjoyable has certain and relatively predictable effects on our body's neural activity patterns.

What happens in our brains when we listen to our favorite music?

Specifically, strong electrical connections are established between the auditory areas of the brain and the hippocampusa part related to memory and emotionality. That means that the neural processes experienced by a fan of Turbonegro fan experience are very similar to those in the head of a fan of Chopin when both are listening to what they like, no matter how different the vibrations that reach their eardrums.

The finding would also help explain why completely different pieces of music can trigger very similar emotional states in different people and the role of music in recalling memories. In addition, it is further evidence of how closely related memories and the emotions associated with retrieving them are.

However, the fundamental aspect of the study is that it shows how our brain is capable of turning any series of sound stimuli around to awaken unpredictable moods, to a certain extent, related to the listener's musical taste. In this sense, it has also been seen that we are able to make music something pleasant by identifying with what we hear, relating it to our memories and thus helping to give them a satisfactory meaning or using it to better regulate our emotions.

Different stimuli, same result

Of course, every moment has its potential "ideal music" and we would probably not get the same results if we forced someone to listen to their favorite track longer than desired, for example, or at a time when they did not feel like listening to anything.

See, for example, A Clockwork Orange. However, in most cases there seems to be the paradox that very complex and changing processes (the adaptation of the brain to the enjoyment of virtually any piece of music) result in a stereotypical and predictable pattern of activation. It is a test of the brain's ability to arrive at the same results from different starting situations, and memory plays a key role in this process.and memory plays a fundamental role in this process.

Beyond laboratory experiments, it is clear that the sensation of listening to music to our liking is unique and to some extent indescribable. However, if we lift the hood of our nervous system and observe what happens in it during this experience, we will realize that behind such subjective sensations there is a network of neurons acting with meaning.

Bibliographical references:

• Kawakami, A., Furukawa, K., Katahira, K. and Okanoya, Kazuo. (2013). Sad music induces pleasant emotion. Frontiers in Psychology, 4(311).
• Van den Tol, A. J. M., Edwards, J. (2014). Listening to sad music in adverse situations: How music selection strategies relate to self-regulatory goals, listening effects, and mood enhancement. Psychology of Music.
• Wilkins, R. W., Hodges, D. A., Laurienti, P. J., Steen, M. Y Burdette, J. H. (2014).Network Science and the Effects of Music Preference on Functional Brain Connectivity: From Beethoven to Eminem. Scientific Reports, 4. doi:10.1038/srep06130