'Chilling' music activates brain's pleasure centers

Washington, June 14 (ANI): A new study has revealed that listening to 'chilling' music can lead to the activation of the same reward centres in the brain as drugs such as cocaine.

During the study, Canadian researchers used two separate brain imaging tests to examined subjects as they listened alternately to music that gave them chills and music that did not.

While using a PET scan they found that emotionally powerful music that gives us "chills" or "shivers-down-the-spine" leads to a release of dopamine in the reward centres of the brain (mesolimbic striatum).

And fMRI scans showed that activation in these regions happens both during the experience of chills and while subjects are anticipating them.

They concluded that music, a mere sequence of notes arranged in time, could activate the same reward centres in the brain as drugs such as cocaine. (ANI)