How the Brain Reacts to our Favorite Piece of Music

The (positive) response of the brain to our favorite piece of music is almost universal, regardless of the genre we like to listen to.

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Be it Rihanna Drake or Tupac it does not matter: when we listen to our favorite song, we all report similar feelings, such as the memory of personal experiences with a strong emotional content, or thoughts about our experience.
Now neuroscientists have understood why: listening to the favorite musical genre, whatever it is, always activates a specific network of brain connections, regardless of the type of music and the presence or absence of words in the songs.

BRAINS LISTENING

While listening to a piece of music that we do not like does not generate any emotion, but hearing the pieces of a group we love resound immediately and creates an introspective reflection. This has been known for some time, but the neural dynamics at the origin of these sensations had not yet been thoroughly investigated.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina, and the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem (USA) examined the functional magnetic resonances (fMRI) of 21 volunteers listening to music of various kinds. In particular, they analyzed brain scans taken under three conditions: listening to a piece of your favorite genre, a piece of the less popular genre, and your favorite song in absolute.

DAYDREAMS

The analyzes have shown that, when you hear your favorite song, in the brain you activate a network of brain areas called the default mode network (DMN) : an important circuit for the mental work of introspection and elaboration of plans, projects and actions, that usually works when a person is awake, but at rest (in moments, that is, in which we can leave the mind free to roam). The same circuit is temporarily deactivated when we listen to a song that we do not like.

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RECOVERY OF MEMORIES

Our favorite piece seems to enhance the connectivity between the brain regions that process the auditory stimuli and the hippocampus, a brain structure involved in the consolidation of memory and social emotions. Both conditions occur regardless of the genre to which the favorite song belongs, and be it with or without words.

" These results can explain why people who listen to very different passages, such as those of Eminem or Beethoven, experience the same emotional and mental states ", commented the authors of the study.

The results could serve to set up new forms of direct music therapy, for example, to those suffering from autism.