Addiction to Music Has Biochemical Basis

People who say that they are “addicted” to music are not lying, researchers have shown in a new study. In fact, they may be more right than they themselves believe. The research evidences the biochemical mechanisms that underlie music addiction.

When most individuals really like a song, they experience chills and a “high” of sorts, which may give them a lot of energy and a pleasurable feeling. Those who put songs on repeat all the time want to re-experience those sensations over and over again.

But, in addition to the already-famous chills, listening to music you like also triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in underlying pleasurable reactions caused by food, drugs and arousal before intercourse.

The chemical has been linked in a variety of studies with mechanisms underlying addiction in humans, and it would appear that it also plays a role in the way people feel when listening to their favorite tunes.

In the new investigation, Robert Zatorre and Valorie Salimpoor, who both hold appointments as neuroscientists at the McGill University, detail the pathways through which dopamine acts on the brain.

Details of the investigation were recently published in the latest issue of the esteemed scientific journal Nature Neuroscience, experts at the Northwestern University's MEDILL news service report.

Scientists with the research team measured a variety of factors influencing perception and the human body in the new experiments. They monitored dopamine release in test subjects, and also their heart rates, body temperature and other such effects.

Participants were asked to listen to some of their favorite tunes while their brains were being observed using a imaging technique known as Position Emission Tomography (PET).

“Dopamine is important because it makes us want to repeat behaviors. It’s the reason why addictions exist, whether positive or negative,” Salimpoor explains in an email.

“In this case, the euphoric ‘highs’ from music are neurochemically reinforced by our brain so we keep coming back to them. It’s like drugs. It works on the same system as cocaine,” he adds.

“It’s working on the same systems of addiction, which explain why we’re willing to spend so much time and money trying to achieve musical experiences,” the expert goes on to say.

“This is the first time that we’ve found dopamine release in response to an aesthetic stimulus. Aesthetic stimuli are largely cognitive in nature. It’s not the music that is giving us the ‘rush.' It’s the way we’re interpreting it,” Salimpoor concludes.