Music and heroin trigger same parts of the brain says study
Good music feels like heroin and now there is a scientific study to back this up. Music triggers the exact same centres of the brain that heroin does.
Heroin and its opioid counterparts elicit major euphoria in the same parts of the brain that music does. It makes a lot of sense considering how enamoured we all tend to be with music. While music itself isn’t exactly like heroin, the regions of your brain that responds to opiates also responds to music.
“This is the first demonstration that the brain’s own opioids are directly involved in musical pleasure. One [test participant] said: ‘I know this is my favorite song but it doesn’t feel like it usually does.’ Another: ‘It sounds pretty, but it’s not doing anything for me.’ The new findings add to the growing body of evidence for the evolutionary biological substrates of music” said cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitin, from the McGill University study.
They set out to see of music does affect the same parts of the brain as opioids. The study focused on proving this hypothesis.
What they did was to temporarily ‘decommission’ the region of the brain excited by heroine with targeted drugs. They did this with a drug that dulls the ‘hedonics’ system of the brain, known as Naltrexone (NTX).
Naltrexone (NTX) has been shown to reduce reward after physical activity. It reduces food pleasure and subjective appetite during eating and modulate pain and mood.
Participants were played their favorite songs, with little emotional reaction. Because the pleasure receptors in their brains were dulled, they didn’t enjoy the music as they had before. All they had was the memory of enjoying the song.
If you have ever felt meaning behind the popular saying “music is my drug” then this study might possibly make a lot of sense to you
The withdrawal from not listening to music is simply a lower sense of happiness. This is not as severe as the withdrawal experience from heroin. Music is simply a healthier and less dangerous drug.
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