Author: Vienna M Doenni, PhD
Scientists like I, always try our best to understand the brain. What excites us everyday is often what we find exciting to work on: Why is skydiving such a thrill, how does chocolate make us happier, and why is playing a computer game just so addictive? One thing we have struggled for years to understand is music. Why do we get goose bumps when we hear our favourite song, and how is it that some music can always get us into a great mood?
Scientists in Montreal have been working on this issue for years, trying to understand how music can evoke such strong responses. In science we like to boil everything down to necessity: Obviously, giraffes have long necks so they can reach leafs that other animals can’t and wasps can sting because they need to be able to defend themselves against birds and bears (yes, bears like to occasionally snack on wasps). Loving high fat food kept the cavemen motivated to seek for more food so he would not starve, that is probably why 130000 years later we still find chocolate and cookies pretty awesome. But what advantage for survival does loving to dance to Justin Bieber or getting chill when we hear an awesome guitar solo really give us? - Probably very little. For that reason scientists were very sceptical to believe that loving music may be hardwired in the brain.
Did you know that we can take pictures of molecules in our brain?
Recently, we got proof that music does turn on our brain-reward system, much like chocolate does. Researchers found proof that our inner reward molecule dopamine gets released whenever we listen to music we like. They research this by putting people into a brain scanner while they listen to music. They even have a little camera that can detect, whether or not people have goose bumps. These “goosecams” (that is actually how they call it) measure the degree in which your arm hair stands up. Another thing that happens when you listen to music you love is that your hands may get sweaty, because you get really excited. (By the way, this also happens when you lie.) This is another thing scientists can measure. When your hands get “sweaty” your skin actually becomes a better conductor to electricity. Water is a great conductor, which is the reason you should not be in a swimming pool when there is a thunderstorm. While a dry pool would not be very good conductor, a water filled pool would zap you quite a bit if lightning strikes. This type of “zap” we can apply to the skin (a lot lighter than lightning of course) and measure how much your skin reacts to the music.
Did you know that there are people who do not like music?
If you have a song that you get really exited about, that you listen to over and over again, or that you cannot help but start dancing to, you are one of the lucky 95% of the population who release dopamine in response to music. We think that about 5% of people do not have the ability to do that - that is 1 in 20 people. That means that in every school class, in every hockey team, even on every bus there is probably 1 or more person that has what scientists call amusia. These people are unable to experience pleasure from music. To this point nobody knows if those people just have not learned to like music or if liking music is heritable and in our genes. These people will still like chocolate and be completely normal; they just won’t get excited about music. So the next time you see someone who does not seem to be enjoying himself when you play your favourite song, make sure you give him a piece of chocolate, because he may have amusia.