It has long been known that people get a special kind of rush when they are listening to their favorite tunes, earning strong and positive emotional responses. However, researchers have now found strong evidence that preferred music actually boosts brain function.
That's at least according to a study recently published in the journal Nature: Scientific Reports.
The study details how the brains of 21 young adults functioned differently when exposed to music they liked verses music they didn't like or were apathetic to.
The 21 volunteers were exposed to several music recordings after indicating which genres were their favorite. As they listened, their brains were scanned using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine.
By isolating certain brain patterns related to the music's lyrics and beat, the researchers were able to find notable changes in brain activity that was related to enjoying a favorite song.
According to the study, the most notable patterns were in regions of the brain associated with the default mode network (DMN) - a network of neural pathways associated with self-awareness, daydreaming, and possibly even imagination.
Predictably, when the DMM activates in mammals, another network called the task-positive network (TPN) can go quiet. This second network is associated with goal oriented activity - explaining why we lose focus when our mind starts to wander.
The authors add in their paper that the consistency of results - where preferred tunes lead to heighted DMN activity - was surprising "given that musical preferences are uniquely individualized phenomena and that music can vary in acoustic complexity."
"We also show that listening to a favorite song alters the connectivity between auditory brain areas and the hippocampus, a region responsible for memory and social emotion consolidation," the authors add. " These findings may explain why comparable emotional and mental states can be experienced by people listening to music that differs as widely as Beethoven and Eminem."