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Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music
Valorie N Salimpoor13, Mitchel Benovoy3,4, Kevin Larcher1, Alain Dagher1 & Robert J Zatorre13
Music, an abstract stimulus, can arouse feelings of euphoria and craving, similar to tangible rewards that involve the striatal dopaminergic system. Using the neurochemical specificity of [11C]raclopride positron emission tomography scanning, combined with psychophysiological measures of autonomic nervous system activity, we found endogenous dopamine release in the striatum at peak emotional arousal during music listening. To examine the time course of dopamine release, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging with the same stimuli and listeners, and found a functional dissociation: the caudate was more involved during the anticipation and the nucleus accumbens was more involved during the experience of peak emotional responses to music. These results indicate that intense pleasure in response to music can lead to dopamine release in the striatal system. Notably, the anticipation of an abstract reward can result in dopamine release in an anatomical pathway distinct from that associated with the peak pleasure itself. Our results help to explain why music is of such high value across all human societies.
2011Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.
peak emotional responses to music5,1214. Chills involve a clear and discrete pattern of autonomic nervous system (ANS) arousal15, which allows for objective verification through psychophysiological measurements. Thus, the chills response can be used to objectively index pleasure, a subjective phenomenon that would otherwise be difficult to operationalize, and allows us to pinpoint the precise time of maximal pleasure.
Previous studies have typically used experimenter-selected musical stimuli68. However, musical preferences are highly individualized; thus, to ensure maximal emotional responses, participants were asked to select their own highly pleasurable music. After extensive screening (Online Methods), we recruited a group of people who consistently experienced objectively verifiable chills during their peak emotional responses so that we could quantify both the occurrence and the timing of the most intense pleasurable responses. We also collected psychophysiological measurements (heart rate, respiration rate, electrodermal skin conductance, blood volume pulse amplitude and peripheral temperature) during the PET scans to verify ANS differences between conditions. To account for psychoacoustical differences across self-selected stimuli, we matched musical excerpts using a previously...