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Why music gives you chills

<p>Scientists have tracked down the bit of the brain that gives you goosebumps and chills when you hear music you love.</p> <p>When Adele sings: "Hello from the other side ..." and the skin crackles on the back of your neck, it's all happening in the brain's fronto-striatal circuits.</p> <p>Even more amazingly, researchers discovered that this part of the brain can be stimulated to make someone enjoy the music more or less.</p> <p>The Canadian study comes from McGill University and is reported in the journal <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0241-z" target="_blank">Nature Human Behaviour</a></strong></em></span>.</p> <p>Seventeen right-handed subjects rated their experience of listening to songs they like, plus others selected by the researchers, by saying how they were affected on a four-point scale ranging from neutral to chills.</p> <p>While they did so, researchers applied magnetic fields to the brain circuits which they suspected were involved in feelings of musical pleasure. By changing activity in the brain circuitry, the researchers could change the pleasure experienced.</p> <p>The researchers said this could provide insights into further studies on how a structured sequence of sounds (yes, music) may become pleasant.</p> <p>It could also open the way into research into how to further understand the brain's role in humans experiencing aesthetic pleasure.</p> <p><em>Written by Ewan Sargeant. Republished with permission of</em> <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/" target="_blank"><em><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Stuff.co.nz</span></strong></em></a>.</p>

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