What Music Does to Your Brain

Martin Backhausen
3 min readApr 17, 2023

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Listening to music can soothe your brain, enliven your spirit and boost your memory. Moreover, learning to play an instrument can give your brain a workout and improve your brain matter volume.

What’s more, music can help rewire your brain in the event of brain injury. In fact, music helps patients with severe brain injuries recall memories they previously could not access.

When you listen to music, it stimulates many parts of your brain at once. It activates the auditory cortex, part of the temporal lobe on each side of your head.

In addition to analyzing information from sound, the auditory cortex also processes other aspects of music, including rhythm, harmony, and timber. These patterns matter to your brain because they affect the way the sounds make you feel.

One area of the auditory cortex called the nucleus accumbens, releases neurotransmitters that cause pleasure in response to musical experiences. This region also draws upon encoded beliefs about what constitutes “good” music.

Using fMRI, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found that there is a specific population of neurons in the brain that light up when we hear singing. They are located in the auditory cortex, a part of the temporal lobe that processes sound.

The auditory cortex is responsible for parsing rudimentary information about music, including pitch, volume, and tone. It also helps analyze music’s melody, harmony, and other essential elements.

When we listen to music, this process continues, involving more areas of the brain. The cerebellum, for example, is involved in balance, rhythm, and coordinating skeletal muscle movement when dancing or playing an instrument.

This means that music and rhythm can trigger blood flow throughout the body to stimulate a sense of well-being and health. It also triggers an emotional response in some people, who may find it comforting and soothing.

Music activates the amygdala, a brain region that is responsible for processing emotions. It also stimulates the reward centers in the nucleus accumbens, which release dopamine when we experience a pleasure.

The amygdala also helps regulate stress hormones and is essential for the body’s emotional response to stressful situations. Chronic stress can cause the amygdala to grow larger and become hypersensitive, making it harder for us to cope with stressful situations.

This is one reason why people with PTSD can have high levels of cortisol in their system. Fortunately, listening to upbeat, happy music can help regulate the body’s stress level and bring it back into balance.

Researchers have also found that children with autism who aren’t able to identify emotions can learn to do so through listening to music. They can pick up on the differences in tone, volume, and rhythm of the music that makes them feel certain emotions, says neuroscientist Evgeny Molnar-Szakacs.

Music is a powerful tool to help us deal with stress, anxiety, and depression. It also allows our memory and focus, says a recent study.

Music activates the hippocampus, which is known for its ability to store memories. This part of the brain also releases the hormone dopamine, which can relieve feelings of anxiety and depression.

The hippocampus is also related to feelings of joy and happiness. This is a part of the brain that is responsible for social bonding and attachment-related emotions, such as love and compassion.

Music can also stimulate the hippocampus and other parts of the brain involved in learning and memory, according to research. It also improves spatial-temporal reasoning, which is essential for subjects like math and science.

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Martin Backhausen

Martin Backhausen is a skilled musician, songwriter, and music producer who can both read music and play instruments by ear.