Chances are you know someone who doesn’t really care about music. For some reason, listening to music just doesn’t do it for them. Ever wonder why? It could be neurological.
Researchers put volunteers through state-of-the-art MRI tests and played them music. Those who claimed not to enjoy music were found to have lower blood flow in the brain’s reward networks. This suggests that they have less functional connectivity between the auditory processing and reward centres. In other words, music doesn’t prompt the brain to produce dopamine, the body’s feel-good hormone. No dopamine, no pleasure.
Why? No one knows. Time to shove more people into the MRI machine.
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