Bring on festival season: why our brains like music

Written by Lucy Chard (Assistant Editor)

music festival crowd

Listening to music brings many people joy, and a new study reveals the neural pathways involved in this reaction. In the past year, many of us have found ourselves away from our regular environments, in more isolated situations. So, many have turned to music to give us that little bit of atmosphere that’s been missing, and it’s a real mood booster – but why? Why do we derive pleasure from simply listening to music? New research published in the Journal of Neuroscience, details how communication between the brain’s auditory circuits and reward center leads to this feeling of musical pleasure...

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