PNAS
Published January 21
Dopamine directly increases our enjoyment of listening, singing, or playing to music, which confer no known survival advantage. This double blind within-subject study directly manipulated healthy participants’ dopamine levels while they listened to music. The results indicate how an individual’s ability to absorb dopamine may play different, unforeseen roles in the brain’s reward response in emotional processing, particularly in abstract cognitive activities like listening to or participating in music.
Canadian co-author: Robert Zatorre, McGill University – robert.zatorre@mcgill.ca; and others
