Those delicious chills you get as your favorite piece of music reaches its climax? They're the result of a glorious spike of dopamine in your brain--that's the same neurotransmitter that's involved in reward, motivation, and addiction. In a nifty series of experiments published in Nature Neuroscience, researchers determined that music provokes floods of dopamine in music lovers. Study coauthor Valorie Salimpoor notes that dopamine has long been known to play a role in more physical activities like taking drugs and having sex, but this research highlights its role in other aspects of our lives.
"It is amazing that we can release dopamine in anticipation of something abstract, complex and not concrete," Salimpoor said. "This is the first study to show that dopamine can be released in response to an aesthetic stimulus." [Discovery News]
The researchers first identified eight music loving volunteers who reported consistently experiencing chills of pleasure when listening ...
