Clear Light
8th February 2017, 19:05
(UK) The Independent (8 Feb 2017) : Music and sex stimulate the same part of the brain (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/music-sex-stimulate-same-part-brain-opioid-drugs-rock-n-roll-mcgill-university-scientific-reports-a7568606.html)
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_large/public/thumbnails/image/2017/02/08/10/iggypop.jpg
Rock star Iggy Pop performs with The Stooges [Reuters]
Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll has been a preoccupation of generations of young people since the 1960s, while even even Shakespeare wrote: “If music be the food of love, play on.”
And now scientists have discovered one reason why they seem to go so well together.
For the same chemical system in the brain that produces feelings of pleasure as a result of having sex, taking recreational drugs or eating tasty food is also stimulated by listening to a favourite tune.
To test the theory, the researchers found a way to temporarily block the natural opioid substances produced when we are having a good time.
Seventeen test subjects were then played music to see if doing this had an effect.
Dr Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist at McGill University in Canada as well as a musician and record producer, said: “The impressions our participants shared with us after the experiment were fascinating.
“One said: ‘I know this is my favourite song but it doesn’t feel like it usually does’.
“Another admitted: ‘It sounds pretty, but it’s not doing anything for me’.”
He added that this was the first time it had been shown conclusively that opioids in the brain were “directly involved in musical pleasure”.
Alcohol, sex, gambling and other activities that stimulate this system can lead to damaging addictive behaviour in a similar way to recreational drugs.
It is hoped that understanding the processes involved could help lead to new ways to treat addiction.
This again harks back to Shakespeare. The full sentence above, spoken by the apparently heartbroken Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night, is: “If music be the food of love, play on,/ Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,/ The appetite may sicken, and so die.”
The researchers said the ability of music to affect our emotions so strongly suggested humans have evolved over a long period to like it.
Writing in the journal Scientific Reports [1], the researchers said their findings “add to the growing body of evidence for the evolutionary biological substrates of music”.
A recent study found cheese contains a chemical contained in addictive drugs, giving a reason why some foods are more addictive than others.
And, in other research, music during exercise was also found to help people exercise harder by releasing chemicals that make people feel less tired.
. : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : .
[1] Anhedonia to music and mu-opioids: Evidence from the administration of naltrexone (http://www.nature.com/articles/srep41952)
Accordingly, we administered NTX or placebo on two different days in a double-blind crossover study, and assessed participants’ responses to music using both psychophysiological (objective) and behavioral (subjective) measures. We found that both positive and negative emotions were attenuated. We conclude that endogenous opioids are critical to experiencing both positive and negative emotions in music, and that music uses the same reward pathways as food, drug and sexual pleasure. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence for the evolutionary biological substrates of music.
Music is a human universal — no known culture now or any time in the past has lacked music, and its emotional significance is well known. Mothers in every culture sing to their infants, making music one of the newborn’s first experiences. It is present during a wide variety of human activities — birthdays, religious ceremonies, political gatherings, sporting events, parties and romantic encounters. Although the neural underpinnings of music cognition have been widely studied in the last fifteen years, relatively little is known about the neurochemical processes underlying musical pleasure
An intriguing finding is that NTX administration is associated with a generalized reduction in hedonics — participants report feeling reduced highs and lows, joy and sadness. This informed the present study, in which we sought to investigate musical anhedonia — to explore whether musical emotion is governed by the same hedonic/reward system as other experiences, such as food, drugs, and sex.
We have shown here that the opioid system is responsible for mediating the elicitations of both positive (pleasurable) and negative (sadness) emotional responses to music. It remains to be seen exactly how the opioid system interacts with the dopaminergic system in emotional responses to music. Future studies using music stimuli in which anticipatory expectations are violated or computer generated music in which only the anticipatory component is included could be used to more clearly differentiate the anticipatory phase from the consumption phase in music. In addition, future PET studies using both dopamine and opioid radiotracers can further shed light on how these two systems interact.
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_large/public/thumbnails/image/2017/02/08/10/iggypop.jpg
Rock star Iggy Pop performs with The Stooges [Reuters]
Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll has been a preoccupation of generations of young people since the 1960s, while even even Shakespeare wrote: “If music be the food of love, play on.”
And now scientists have discovered one reason why they seem to go so well together.
For the same chemical system in the brain that produces feelings of pleasure as a result of having sex, taking recreational drugs or eating tasty food is also stimulated by listening to a favourite tune.
To test the theory, the researchers found a way to temporarily block the natural opioid substances produced when we are having a good time.
Seventeen test subjects were then played music to see if doing this had an effect.
Dr Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist at McGill University in Canada as well as a musician and record producer, said: “The impressions our participants shared with us after the experiment were fascinating.
“One said: ‘I know this is my favourite song but it doesn’t feel like it usually does’.
“Another admitted: ‘It sounds pretty, but it’s not doing anything for me’.”
He added that this was the first time it had been shown conclusively that opioids in the brain were “directly involved in musical pleasure”.
Alcohol, sex, gambling and other activities that stimulate this system can lead to damaging addictive behaviour in a similar way to recreational drugs.
It is hoped that understanding the processes involved could help lead to new ways to treat addiction.
This again harks back to Shakespeare. The full sentence above, spoken by the apparently heartbroken Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night, is: “If music be the food of love, play on,/ Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,/ The appetite may sicken, and so die.”
The researchers said the ability of music to affect our emotions so strongly suggested humans have evolved over a long period to like it.
Writing in the journal Scientific Reports [1], the researchers said their findings “add to the growing body of evidence for the evolutionary biological substrates of music”.
A recent study found cheese contains a chemical contained in addictive drugs, giving a reason why some foods are more addictive than others.
And, in other research, music during exercise was also found to help people exercise harder by releasing chemicals that make people feel less tired.
. : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : .
[1] Anhedonia to music and mu-opioids: Evidence from the administration of naltrexone (http://www.nature.com/articles/srep41952)
Accordingly, we administered NTX or placebo on two different days in a double-blind crossover study, and assessed participants’ responses to music using both psychophysiological (objective) and behavioral (subjective) measures. We found that both positive and negative emotions were attenuated. We conclude that endogenous opioids are critical to experiencing both positive and negative emotions in music, and that music uses the same reward pathways as food, drug and sexual pleasure. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence for the evolutionary biological substrates of music.
Music is a human universal — no known culture now or any time in the past has lacked music, and its emotional significance is well known. Mothers in every culture sing to their infants, making music one of the newborn’s first experiences. It is present during a wide variety of human activities — birthdays, religious ceremonies, political gatherings, sporting events, parties and romantic encounters. Although the neural underpinnings of music cognition have been widely studied in the last fifteen years, relatively little is known about the neurochemical processes underlying musical pleasure
An intriguing finding is that NTX administration is associated with a generalized reduction in hedonics — participants report feeling reduced highs and lows, joy and sadness. This informed the present study, in which we sought to investigate musical anhedonia — to explore whether musical emotion is governed by the same hedonic/reward system as other experiences, such as food, drugs, and sex.
We have shown here that the opioid system is responsible for mediating the elicitations of both positive (pleasurable) and negative (sadness) emotional responses to music. It remains to be seen exactly how the opioid system interacts with the dopaminergic system in emotional responses to music. Future studies using music stimuli in which anticipatory expectations are violated or computer generated music in which only the anticipatory component is included could be used to more clearly differentiate the anticipatory phase from the consumption phase in music. In addition, future PET studies using both dopamine and opioid radiotracers can further shed light on how these two systems interact.