Scientific explanation of emotional reactions when we are listening to music
Suppose you are listening to music quietly when that song sounds that makes all your hair stood. That same song is the trigger for an infinity of emotions that your body feels at the moment that this melody sounds. Music has a real effect on us and is something that is directly connected to our brain.
Human beings experience pleasure and appreciate aesthetics, thus seeking beauty in this world. We show answers to certain stimuli that do not have an intrinsic value, but an aesthetic one, since they are attractive and even valuable when using our senses. An interesting fact is that, although these aesthetic values are characteristic of the human species, not everyone shares it. Each person is different and there is great individual variability in what corresponds to aesthetic reactions.
As the Russian writer León Tolstay said: "Music is the shorthand of emotion". Music is considered as the ideal stimulus to study pleasure in man and has a purely aesthetic value. Each individual responds physiologically different when listening to music: some when they hear a song feel a knot in their throat, they are moved by the melody or lyrics of the song, experience a chill on their backs or see that they put on chicken skin;while, nothing happens to others mentioned above. These emotional responses are frequently linked to pleasure stimulation which allows us to have a charming auditory reaction. In the particular case that "chicken skin" is scientifically called this stimulus as a pilling causing the muscles located in the base of each capillary they get and lift in the hairs that cover the skin. While the pores are slightly dilated, causing that unique appearance of the "chicken skin".
The biological design of man is driven by emotions, which are housed in a brain system that has been present in various past generations and over time has evolved until today. This is why, given any threat that is brought, we respond instinctively with emotional resources. According to its etymology, the word emotion Émotion, derived from Émouvoir which means ‘move’ of the etymological family of moving. In this way, all emotion constitutes an impulse that mobilizes us to action.
Around the brain stem, the most primitive region of our brain is housed and regulates the most basic functions such as breathing or metabolism, and that is how the limbic system which contributes emotions to brain responses was configured. The limbic system has the main function of emotional regulation and is constituted by various cerebral structures interconnected with each other. One of the structures is the hypothalamus that together with their mammillary bodies, located at its posterior end, contain hypothalamic nuclei and are responsible for receiving impulses from the tonsil and hippocampus, and the forwarding of these impulses towards the thalamus. The amygdala, which has the shape of an almond, fulfills the function of integrating emotions with the corresponding response patterns at the physiological and behavioral level. Its connections produce an emotional reaction and allow behavior inhibition. While, the hippocampus is the main person in charge of emotional memory. This means that each event lived, meaning and experienced is filtered by the hippocampus that, together with the hypothalamus, makes us remember not only the experiences, but also what we feel associated with them. And the thalamus is responsible for distributing messages to the other cerebral processing regions. However, the neocortex, despite not being part of the limbic system, is also an important structure, since its function is to register, analyze the situation and go to the prefrontal lobes to understand and organize the stimuli relating it to the limbic system allows to expandour range of reactions to emotional stimuli.
In each of us two different minds are covered: one that thinks and another that feels, reflecting the functioning of different brain circuits, although interrelated. In fact, the intellect cannot function properly without emotional intelligence or vice versa, and the complementation between the limbic system and the neocortex demands the participation of both. On this basis our emotions settle and it is what differentiates us from the other species.
Precisely the emotional reactions, which make us human and sensitive in turn, have been the object of study of scientists such as Matthew Sachs, former Harvard graduate. He has been studying the physical reactions of our body for years when we listen to music. A few months ago, he published the results of a study that did 20 students who put their favorite songs and saw that 10 chicken skin and the other 10 were not put. 50% of the people tested feel chills when they hear a specific music. With a brain scanner they saw that the group that had experienced physical reactions had more neuronal connections in the auditory cortex, the emotional processing centers and prefrontal cortex. Although very few people participated in the study, the results could indicate that people who physically react to music could have better neuronal connections. Therefore, those people who are bristling with music can have the ability to feel emotions more intensely. It was concluded that people who had a strong emotional response were more open to new musical experiences and had more musical training, while others were more abstract and cognitive.
"The idea is that if there are more fibers and greater efficiency between the two regions you probably have a brain that better processes all the information and shared its different parts," said scientist Matthew Sachs.
Thanks to the technological media that have developed over time, such as the brain scanner, the functioning of our brains has been discovered and, thus, science has a powerful tool to treat emotions. Neuroimaging studies, which allow to visualize how the brain is handled and see, in these cases, the activation of the regions that process emotions. That is, the physiological response to a melody is linked to an emotional response and a feeling of pleasure.
If a specific song stimulates certain brain responses, our heart is to beat faster, the pupils dilate, the body temperature increases, the brain is further activated, the reward circuit (located in the brain) is flooded with dopamine andIt feels like an electrical stimulus that arises from the body. Interestingly, dopamine discharge reaches its peak several seconds before that determined moment that generates that sensation comes. It is believed that it is because the brain is predicting what will happen, anticipating pleasure, but that not only happens with melodies that we already know but also with another that we hear for the first time. However, music, if it has not been heard before, is unpredictable and can be maintained in some emotional tension during its reproduction time. If that predicted according to the neuronal circuits finally appears, the brain marks that satisfaction signal and feels that chill.
As a result, the thinking brain grew and developed from the emotional region and together with the cognitive they are still closely linked by thousands of neuronal circuits. These discoveries shed light on the intimate relationship between thought and feeling. An investigation published in the magazine "Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience" found that those who are more likely to have chills when listening to a song have more fibers that connect the auditory cortex with the brain areas associated with emotional processing. So, do you have any song that puts chicken skin?
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