Mind areas the place favourite music affected opioid launch. Credit score: Turku PET Centre
Music can evoke intense pleasure, typically skilled bodily as nice “chills.” Whereas the impact of music on pleasure is evident, the mind mechanisms behind musical enjoyment should not but absolutely understood. The mind’s opioid system is understood to be concerned in pleasurable experiences associated to survival-critical behaviors, akin to consuming and intercourse.
This new examine from the Turku PET Middle in Finland demonstrates for the primary time that listening to favourite music additionally prompts the mind’s opioid receptors. The work is revealed within the European Journal of Nuclear Medication and Molecular Imaging.
The examine measured the discharge of opioids within the mind utilizing positron emission tomography (PET) whereas members listened to their favourite music. Moreover, purposeful magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to look at how the density of opioid receptors impacts mind activation when listening to music.
The outcomes present that favourite music influenced opioid launch in a number of mind areas related to the expertise of enjoyment. The discharge of opioids was additionally linked to how typically members reported experiencing pleasurable chills whereas listening to music.
Moreover, particular person variations within the variety of opioid receptors correlated with mind activation throughout music listening: the extra opioid receptors members had, the extra strongly their brains reacted in MRI scans.
“These results show for the first time directly that listening to music activates the brain’s opioid system. The release of opioids explains why music can produce such strong feelings of pleasure, even though it is not a primary reward necessary for survival or reproduction, like food or sexual pleasure,” says Academy Analysis Fellow Vesa Putkinen from the College of Turku.
Professor Lauri Nummenmaa provides, “The brain’s opioid system is also involved in pain relief. Based on our findings, the previously observed pain-relieving effects of music may be due to music-induced opioid responses in the brain.”
The examine supplies vital new perception into how the mind’s chemical methods regulate the pleasure derived from music. The outcomes may additionally assist develop new music-based interventions, for instance, in ache administration and the remedy of psychological well being problems.
Extra info:
Vesa Putkinen et al, Pleasurable music prompts cerebral µ-opioid receptors: a mixed PET-fMRI examine, European Journal of Nuclear Medication and Molecular Imaging (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s00259-025-07232-z
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College of Turku
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Favourite music units the mind’s opioids in movement, imaging examine reveals (2025, April 16)
retrieved 16 April 2025
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