Why do not all people like listening to music?

Music has the ability to make us feel good and cheer up, but on some people it does not have such an effect. No, these cranks can not be accused of the absence of a soul, but the authors of the new study say that instead these people experience the so-called musical anhedonia. This means that their brain is simply not capable of responding to music.

Differences are hidden in our brain

Scanning the brain of 15 subjects with a musical anhedonia and comparing their data with the indices of people not suffering from this strange phenomenon, the researchers were able to find out how the neuronal activity in the two groups differs. Thus, scientists were able to explain why some people do not like listening to music.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers found that when people with a musical anhedonia are listening to music, they have much lower levels of activity in the brain region called the nucleus of the nucleus than people without this condition.

Why the remuneration scheme does not work

Given that the contiguous core is part of the brain's reward scheme, this would seem to explain why these people so rarely can be inspired by the sound of music. Nevertheless, when they took part in the game task, the answer of the adjacent nucleus was just as strong as that of people without a musical anhedonia. This suggests that their scheme of awards works perfectly, and this issue is specifically related to music.

Then the researchers turned their attention to the level of connection between the reward structure, which is called the ventral striatum (it includes the contiguous nucleus) and the auditory cortex of the brain, where sounds are processed. Patients with a musical anhedonia have a lower level of connection than people with a normal reaction to music.

Another group of 15 people with extremely acute sensitivity to music showed a particularly high connection between the ventral striatum and the auditory cortex.

Conclusions of scientists

In publishing the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers write: "The musical anhedonia can be associated with a decrease in the interaction between the auditory cortex and the subcortical network of remuneration. This indicates the key role of such interaction in the perception of music. " However, what causes these differences, the scientists have not yet figured out.