Scientists find the amazing reason your favorite music gives you ‘chills’

Why does music give you 'chills'? Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

Now we know why our favorite music sends shivers down our spine.

Scientists say they have discovered why the melodies we love give us goosebumps.

A team of French researchers found that when we listen to our favourite music, the areas of the brain which handle emotion, movement, and processing music and sound work together to create a surge in dopamine levels – our ‘feel good’ chemical.

According to the study, our brains also try to anticipate what happens next in the song. And when we guess correctly, we get a reward.

Thibault Chabin, a PhD student at the University Burgundy Franche-Comté who led the study, said: “What is most intriguing is that music seems to have no biological benefit to us. However, the implication of dopamine and of the reward system in processing of musical pleasure suggests an ancestral function for music.

“This ancestral function may lie in the period of time we spend in anticipation of the ‘chill-inducing’ part of the music. As we wait, our brains are busy predicting the future and release dopamine.

“Evolutionarily speaking, being able to predict what will happen next is essential for survival.”

Read more: Music takes 13 minutes to ‘release sadness’ and 9 to make you happy >

The team of researchers, whose study was published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, carried out the experiment on 18 music-lovers with a range of musical abilities, who had all experienced chills when listening to music.

“Participants of our study were able to precisely indicate ‘chill-producing’ moments in the songs, but most musical chills occurred in many parts of the extracts and not only in the predicted moments,” says Chabin.

Side note, interestingly – or tragically, depending on your take! – only about half of people get chills when listening to music. Those who do, are considered to have an “enhanced ability to experience intense emotions”.

For Chabin’s study, the participants were hooked up to machines that record electrical activity in the brain, and they were played 90-second clips of their favourite songs.

While they were listening, the scientists watched what happened in their brains whenever the music gave them ‘chills’.

These regions work together to process music and release the ‘feel-good’ hormone, dopamine. Combined with the anticipation that triggers those pleasurable ‘reward systems’, this produces the tingly chill participants felt while listening.

“This represents a good perspective for musical emotion research,” Chabin said.

“Musical pleasure is a very interesting phenomenon that deserves to be investigated further, in order to understand why music is rewarding and unlock why music is essential in human lives.”

(C) 2020 by ClassicFM London

If this music gives you goosebumps ...

... you might have a special brain

By Classic FM, London

By Maddy Shaw Roberts

4K

Think of your favourite piece of music, and think about how you might react to it.

If you’re having trouble, have a listen to this spine-tingling vocal version of Elgar’s Nimrod, by Voces8:

Lux Aeterna – Elgar

Voces8 perform a stunning version of Nimrod

h

Did you feel chills, a lump in your throat, or perhaps a tingling sensation on the back of your neck? Then you might have a more unique brain than you think.

A study, carried out by PHD student Matthew Sachs at the University of Southern California, has revealed that people who get chills from music might have structural differences in their brain.

The research studied 20 students, who listened to three to five pieces of music. 10 of the students admitted to feeling shivers, while the other 10 didn’t. The researchers then took brain scans of all the participants.

“[The 10 who felt shivers] have a higher volume of fibres that connect their auditory cortex to the areas associated with emotional processing, which means the two areas communicate better,” Matthew told Neuroscience News. These 10 participants also had a higher prefrontal cortex, which is involved in certain areas of understanding, like interpreting a song’s meaning (Quartz).

“People who get the chills have an enhanced ability to experience intense emotions,” Sachs said. “Right now, that’s just applied to music because the study focused on the auditory cortex. But it could be studied in different ways down the line,” he pointed out.

The study also found that people who are open to experience – as well as people who have more musical training – are more likely report strong emotional responses.

If you didn’t feel chills at the first piece, have a listen to this impromptu moment of Nordic vocal music, from Åkervinda. It might just tease out a few goosebumps...

Read more about the study here.

4K

Latest on Classic FM