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Music Really Is Intoxicating, After All
jamie writes "Our reaction to the music that we love stimulates the flow of dopamine into certain sections of the brain, concludes a new study out of McGill University. The findings 'help to explain why music is of such high value across all human societies,' the scientists note."
Well, except to education budget departments, anyway. More sports!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I was just lising to the radio turned up.
And then you have music like like mine (free to listen to/download, btw), which is designed to evoke imagery in people's minds. I created what I "heard" when I "saw" things, either in dreams or when using my imagination, but obviously that may differ from what other people see.
It's really interesting, seeing how radically different two different people's reaction can be to the same sound.
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Dead Heads and Phish Phanatics, beware! Oh, wait. You were already targeted.
Bieber Fever maniacs, look out!
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Usually it's a complex very melodic piece, which I've not heard for some time. The combination of remember it and hearing it anew leads to a feeling that is quite on par with some other less healthy ways of getting a dopamine shot.
If I hear the same thing afterwards, it doesn't work as strongly. Few weeks pass, I hear it again, dopamine again.
Hair splitting time....
I don't like the use of the word "intoxicating" in this sense, because it technically means the ingestion of a foreign (or TOXIC) substance to give one a feeling of euphoria. Music is a non-physical way to get your body to release dopamine.
Similarly I don't sex would be considered "intoxication" either.
Gawd I hope plaintiffs lawyers don't start suing drivers arguing they were "drunk on top-40 hits".
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Don't get me wrong, it's worth researching, but it is safe to assume that anything you like doing (learning, masturbating, etc.) stimulates the production of dopamine.
One thing I read that was interesting was a Steven Pinker where he said music simulates the effect of motion on your brain. So dissonant music sounds like scary falling. Nice music makes you feel like you are being softly rocked, etc. I don't know how much that idea has been tested.
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I, for one, believe that the protection of our precious children from this terrible gateway drug requires firm action:
Sale of "listening paraphernalia" to those under the age of 21, or procurement of the same for those under 21 by those over, must be forbidden.
All devices, such as personal computers, that have undeniable legitimate uses, but are at risk of misuse, must have the SNR of any audio-frequency outputs capped at a value that will discourage their misuse. Electronic signal generators and DACs in the 20-20,000Hz range shall be sold only to licensed electrical engineers, with appropriate permits.
Any deliberate misuse of legal low-fidelity audio-frequency hardware in the production of "industrial" "electroglitch" or "ambient electronica" shall be a felony punishable under the Analog Waveforms Act.
The FAA shall have 180 days to draft suitable exemptions under which microphone equipped blimps, zeppelins, and gliders may be able to freely patrol our skies and hunt down illicit "jam sessions" and recording operations.
The production and importation of cheap, potent, illicit audio devices from the pacific rim shall be addressed by more aggressive customs controls, the training of op-amp sniffing dogs, and "Plan Taiwan": a collaboration between American and Taiwanese investigative and security forces to root out and destroy illicit "amp fabs" and consumer-electronics assembly labs.
In deference to tradition, the sentence for possessing an audio-device with proletarian associations, such as a "tape player" or "ghetto blaster", shall be substantially stiffer than that for possessing an overpriced Bose system.
In my experience I have found that instrumental music is the best for elevating my mood. I've been listening to Bach's violin concertos lately on the way to and from work. No matter how bad traffic might be, I cannot listen to that music and not be happy. The notes and the melody just hit the right parts of the brain to trigger those good feelings. I find that a lot of electronica music helps too. On the other hand, the typical music on the radio with lyrics and the same repetitive refrains and choruses just seem to irk me.
So... my parents were right about the evils of listening to that Rock'n'Roll after all?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
why does music have that effect? It's nice to have science approve scientifically of what everyone already knew from experience for thousands of years, but it would be even nicer if science would finally tell us what makes us so crazy about music, or to put it in their terms, why music does stimulate the dopamine flow.
While the speaker towers at a rock concert can give a very visceral musical experience, to me, the most effective whole body musical experience comes from standing close to a pipe organ in the midst of a large chorus. Mozart's Requiem is a good choice.
Also, intoxication makes music intoxicating. Some women, too. And hangover can be pretty nasty.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Why people like Justin Bieber
Well, that explains the attempt to treat it like contraband, and control it so rigorously. The rules make it impossible to grow yer own without having to pay somebody..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
To further and clarify some more on your point:
1. The comparison to chemicals is misleading. There are some chemicals which are simply the brain's normal signals for stuff like "I like this", "this is fun", or basically, "ok, this is worth concentrating on, please continue doing it."
Some drugs mimic the effect of such normal brain signals, by binding to the same receptors. E.g., THC binds to the same receptors as the canabinoids in the brain, so it creates the same euphoria, without it being actually a normal signal released by the brain. (Whereas nicotine merely inhibits the production of MAO-B, an enzime which neutralizes those canabinoids, so it makes you higher by prolonging the effect of the natural ones.)
So basically it's a signal as normal as, dunno, the interrupts in a computer. You can probably find a reason to say it's wrong to simulate interrupts that never happened as part of the normal operation (e.g., wiring a front switch to the NMI trace on the mobo), but railing against a situation where they happened as intended (as this or the "OMG, games produce dopamine" hysteria) is fucking stupid.
2. Dopamine is _not_ a reward signal, so it doesn't even produce such an euphoria.
Dopamine is a motivation signal. Remember when I said that some signals basically say, "ok, this is worth concentrating on, please continue doing it"? That's what dopamine does.
Just about anything that is interesting, captivating or fun by itself is producing dopamine. It's just the brain's way of signalling, "heeyy, I like this! please continue this or stay in the current situation, as apropriate."
Even though dopamine does fire up when an unexpected reward happens (as you'd expect), and is a part of the reward and reinforcement functions, it is not itself a reward signal. It doesn't even seem to play any role in perceiving pleasure.
3. A lot of bullshit around dopamine revolves around its use by the brain in such stuff as sex, or that some stimulants like cocaine also increase dopamine, or that very high levels are associated with manias and psychosis. You just need to drop a mention of one or more of those, and everyone is already ready to lap up "OMG, addiction" bullshit.
In reality that's not very surprising. That sex would also fire up a signal that says "don't stop" when that's a reproduction (hence, natural selection) advantage, is actually as expected as it gets. If the animal were likely to just stop in the middle of sex and go "you know, this is actually quite boring, I'll go pounce on something instead", you'd soon have an evolutionary dead end. (Cue "you've met my ex?" wisecracks;) That it would fire up in conjunction with artificial reward signals, when its normal function _is_ to signal "ok, keep doing whatever gave you the reward", is again rather mundane, and rather uninteresting for its use the rest of the time. And that an abnormal level of it would lead to abnormal effects, again, is actually kind of the normal state for any hormone in the body.
4. But at the end of the day, the fact still remains that it's a signal involved in desire/drive/motivation, and in acknowledging reward/pleasure. Whether you actually subscribe to the school of thought that it does or doesn't take part in actually experiencing that pleasure, the fact remains something has to already be pleasant or interesting to cause a dopamine shot.
That some music you like or a video game or watching Star Trek or really whatever enjoyable activity produces a dopamine shot, just says that you do like it.
Just about the only kind of life that would be free from such "intoxication" would be to never experience anything pleasant or any kind of drive/desire. Also, you'd probably have Parkinson. It's not the kind of existence almost anyone actually has, nor the kind of existence anyone would want.
Well, except if it's those evil music/comics/games addicts. Then their having an existence which includes any fun is obviously eeeevil.
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Kids are getting high listening to Music?
My, God... Kids listen to music in school, in your home, and even at church.
I even heard that Kids are downloading music from internet websites.
What are we going to do to put an end to this latest threat to our children?!
Required reading for internet skeptics
the war on music.
Maybe we will be able to settle this myth once and for all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note
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No wonder I feel stoned after spending a couple of hours listening to the Blue Öyster Cult.
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Nibler: You are the last hope of the universe.
Fry: So I really am important? How I feel when I'm drunk is correct?
Nibbler: Yes - except the Dave Matthews Band doesn't rock.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"Sacred Heart", the first album by "Shakespeare's Sister", at full blast on my brand new portable CD player. (It was the first one that I'd seen for only a hundred bucks.)
Its a friggin' miracle that I still have any hearing left because I played it loud enough to piss off the other people in the office.
I played that thing so often that to this day all I need to hear is the opening bars of "Heroine" and I'm stuck frozen in time until I hear the last bar of the "You Made Me Come To This", the final track.
Man, that brings me back. That was music to code by.
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Does anybody else get pleasant tingling in the head and down the spine during the climax of a symphony? It used to happen randomly in my past, and I never understood it. My mom gets it too. Latley I've been getting it more, and my karma has been good. Last night was the first time I ever thought to google it, and I found people sharing similar experiences here, and now this article randomly shows up on slashdot. It seems to be related to the sanskrit idea of chakra.
It's as if everyone here is high. Seriously, do read.
I'm not a coward by any name.
Listening to Korn ,always gets my adrenaline going....so I do agree with this....although I knew it when i was about 10 years old singing a long to KISS and Ozzy!
There is a phrase "this is your brain on drug". Since music is drug someone needs to write a book with title "This is you brain on music". Oh, wait ...
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
My god! It's almost like we already knew most pleasure based experiences involve the release of dopamine already.......Oh, but then this study would be redundant as hell
It's time to put away your daftly-organised synth presets and stop pretending you are anything but musically bankrupt.
Seriously.
...Are the MPAA going to jail now?
"Music is a safe kind of high."
Unless you're a tween girl
(and if you were, you wouldn't need anyone to explain it)
So our level of exitement (or level of dopamine) is dropping in the last generation... Since those ear buds are destroying our ears we will "enjoy" less of our excellent music thus we will make less dopamine, so we will grow old and be unexited? ;-)
Was anyone else appalled by the correlation statistics given in the charts in this article? I don't know what anyone else expects, but I have trouble believing a claim even when R-squared is 0.8. Reading the methodology (downselecting from hundreds to 10), and then seeing reported R-values (not even R-squared) of approximately 0.6-0.8 (R-squared 0.36-0.64) with a highly constrained experimental setup left me underwhelmed. Is this what passes for science today?