I just came across this 2001 research paper titled
Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion. The used PET imaging to measure blood flow in the brain while people listened to music that gave them "chills". Yes, that is the technical term. From the abstract:
As intensity of these chills increased, cerebral blood flow increases and decreases were observed in brain regions thought to be involved in reward/motivation, emotion, and arousal, including ventral striatum, midbrain, amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, and ventral medial prefrontal cortex. These brain structures are known to be active in response to other euphoria-inducing stimuli, such as food, sex, and drugs of abuse.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to much of anyone. Next up, what about intensely pleasurable responses to music
combined with food, sex, and drugs of abuse?
The full text of the article is available online at the link.
The comments posted here do not reflect the views of the owners of this site.