69. Listening to Music Releases Dopamine in the Brain
Have you ever listened to a piece of music and experienced intense pleasure, even chills? Valorie Salimpoor (2011) and her team conducted research that shows that listening to, or even anticipating, music can release the neurotransmitter dopamine.
The researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) scans, fMRI, and psychophysiological measures such as heart rate to measure reactions while people listened to music. The participants provided music that they said gave them intense pleasure and chills. The range of music included classical, folk, jazz, electronica, rock, pop, tango, and more.
Pleasure vs. Anticipated Pleasure
Salimpoor’s team saw the same pattern of brain and body activity ...
Get 100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
