The neuroscience behind music
- Adéla Ondráčková
- Apr 1
- 3 min read
Music is part of life for people all around the world. Whether as part of religious gatherings or rituals, blasting from the radio on a road trip, or actual concerts and shows, it’s normal and we are surrounded by it from birth till death. But why do we even use music in society and willingly listen to it? And how does it relate to science and mental health? Let’s find out…
Scientists are starting to understand the potential of music as a therapeutic tool, however, a lot of research is still in front of us. Right now, we know it’s gonna be pretty complicated to better understand the benefits of music because of the impressive diversity of possible applications and a lack of clarity around the underlying biological mechanisms, but a certain framework has been established.
This framework includes the most logical four core elements of human musicality, the first being tonality, based on tone perception and the bioacoustics of vocal emotional expression, which, when applied could target mood and anxiety. Then we have rhythm, based on neural resonance, anticipation, and auditory-motor entrainment, which could be helpful in targeting mood, cognition, and motivation. Next is reward, based on the engagement of classic brain reward circuitry and the reinforcement of successful communication, possibly stimulating positive affect and normalizing reward function in the brain. Lastly, we have sociality, based on synchrony and the neurobiology of affiliation, where we so far have broad potential applications in treating social dysfunction and increasing social connection.
You may say that not everyone likes music, but the truth is everyone just likes different kinds of music, and we know for a fact that our attraction to music is fundamental (and genetic, but we will get to that), as reflected in its marked capacities to stimulate wanting, liking, and learning. Neuroimaging studies have already shown that taking pleasure in music is linked to activity in classical brain reward circuitry, including the mesolimbic dopamine pathway (part of the medial forebrain bundle, which is essential for psychobehavioral function). Positron emission tomography with a radiolabeled dopamine receptor ligand (raclopride) was used in previous studies, to show musical frisson (moments of peak neural excitement-“chills” that occur during music listening) are associated with surges in dopamine binding within the pathway, and additionally, other evidence about dopamine pathway role in response to music comes from functional magnetic resonance imaging studies.
So now that we’ve established the neurological connection, let’s look at genetics. A new study used the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ, a well-established psychometric tool) to find out how individuals get pleasure from music, as well as characterization of individual differences in emotions in reaction to music, mood changes caused by the music, tendency to seek out new music, movement evoked by said music and social reward by bonding through the music (5 separate factors in total, that should be considered). The study was done on twins to find out the role of genetics in music enjoyment, which was established to be around 54%, meaning that over half of the attraction to music is predetermined by our DNA, and so is the variability in our liking of the music. They also found out that about 70% of the mentioned effects are independent of a person's musical abilities.
To sum up, not only are we programmed to like music, but our mental health is probably influenced by it as well, meaning our listening choices impact us a lot. The therapeutic potential is great, but we need to dive into this topic further and there is a bunch more research to be done before we can take advantage of the connection between music and mental health. So next time you’re feeling down, think about blasting some music…
Resources:
Bignardi G., et al. (2025) Twin modelling reveals partly distinct genetic pathways to music enjoyment.
Bowling D. L. (2023). Biological principles for music and mental health
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