Scientists have found the effect of music on the human brain

Listening to music acts on the “center” of pleasure in the human brain.

Scientists said that the music affects the same regions of the human brain that give rise to the feeling of pleasure when taking drugs.

The findings of scientists was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Recently, scientists have discovered that drugs cause euphoria by affecting the brain is not in a unique way. It turned out that in a similar way to the “pleasure centers” are a variety of things: from communicating with friends to religious feelings. At the same time, many neuroscientists assumed that likewise needs to act on the person and the music, when played which included the same areas of the cortex and deep layers of the brain, and when taking psychotropic drugs.

Now the researchers suggested that if similarity really is, the pleasures of music should erode or even disappear, if you block those receptors, which typically are molecules of drugs. Today, doctors use these drugs in order to “pump” the opiate addicts and to suppress effects from an overdose of heroin and similar substances.

Taking one of these drugs – naltrexone – scientists have proposed to drink several volunteers, and then listen to two beloved audio recordings. During this procedure, the researchers monitored the changes in facial expression and brain activity of the participants of the experiments, and after they interviewed them on the subject of changed their perception of music.

As it turned out, the blockade of opioid receptors in the brain of volunteers really affect the perception of music – on average, the pleasure of listening to your favorite records dropped 14 points on a 100-point scale, and listening to neutral music on the contrary, became a little more pleasant.

A similar pattern, according to canadian neuroscientist, as observed in the data of direct observations of facial expressions and stories of participants experiences.

paradox