вЂњItвЂ™s kind of like a roller coaster ride,вЂќ she says, вЂњwhere you know whatвЂ™s going to happen, but you can still be pleasantly surprised and enjoy it.вЂќ The dopamine hit comes from having their predictions confirmed-or violated slightly, in intriguing ways. But, if the music has some recognizable features-maybe a familiar beat or melodic structure-people will more likely be able to anticipate the songвЂ™s emotional peaks and enjoy it more. If music is too foreign-sounding, it will be hard to anticipate the songвЂ™s structure, and people wonвЂ™t like it-meaning, no dopamine hit. This finding suggested to her that when people listen to unfamiliar music, their brains process the sounds through memory circuits, searching for recognizable patterns to help them make predictions about where the song is heading. But, she also found increased interaction between the nucleus accumbens and higher, cortical structures of the brain involved in pattern recognition, musical memory, and emotional processing.

When analyzing the brain scans of the participants, she found that when they enjoyed a new song enough to buy it, dopamine was again released in the nucleus accumbens.

But this time she had participants listen to unfamiliar songs, and she gave them some money, instructing them to spend it on any music they liked. This pairing of anticipation and pleasure is a potent combination, one that suggests we are biologically-driven to listen to music we like.Д«ut what happens in our brains when we like something we havenвЂ™t heard before? To find out, Salimpoor again hooked up people to fMRI machines. Presumably, the anticipatory pleasure comes from familiarity with the song-you have a memory of the song you enjoyed in the past embedded in your brain, and you anticipate the high points that are coming. ThereвЂ™s another part of the brain that seeps dopamine, specifically just before those peak emotional moments in a song: the caudate nucleus, which is involved in the anticipation of pleasure. вЂњItвЂ™s also released with drugs that are very powerful and addictive, like cocaine or amphetamines.вЂќ вЂњThatвЂ™s a big deal, because dopamine is released with biological rewards, like eating and sex, for example,вЂќ says Salimpoor. During peak emotional moments in the songs identified by the listeners, dopamine was released in the nucleus accumbens, a structure deep within the older part of our human brain. How powerful? In one of her studies, she and her colleagues hooked up participants to an fMRI machine and recorded their brain activity as they listened to a favorite piece of music. вЂњA single sound tone is not really pleasurable in itself but if these sounds are organized over time in some sort of arrangement, itвЂ™s amazingly powerful.вЂќ How music makes the brain happy вЂњMusic affects deep emotional centers in the brain, вЂњ says Valorie Salimpoor, a neuroscientist at McGill University who studies the brain on music. From the GGSC to your bookshelf: 30 science-backed tools for well-being.

Complicated song structures