Listening to new music = rewarding for the brain

[Initech]

Listening to new music is rewarding for the brain, a study suggests.

Using MRI scans, a Canadian team of scientists found that areas in the reward centre of the brain became active when people heard a song for the first time.

The more the listener enjoyed what they were hearing, the stronger the connections were in the region of the brain called the nucleus accumbens.

The study is published in the journal Science.

Dr Valorie Salimpoor, from the Rotman Research Institute, in Toronto, told the BBC's Science in Action programme: "We know that the nucleus accumbens is involved with reward.

"But music is abstract: It's not like you are really hungry and you are about to get a piece of food and you are really excited about it because you are going to eat it - or the same thing applies to sex or money - that's when you would normally see activity in the nucleus accumbens.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22096764

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. very cool....

I spend most nights listening to spotify investigating music unfamiliar to me... made some great discoveries.

[Initech]

2. I use iTunes to help find new music.

I just got Stone Sour's new album House of Gold & Bones - it rocks.

[Warpy]

3. I've got a couple of favorite streaming radio stations

Radio Sing Sing in France does a mix of blues, really old stuff, rap, world, and dance music. WZBC in Boston has a "No Commercial Potential" format 5 evenings a week and plays stuff you'll never hear anywhere else.

Between the two, I hear a lot of new music every day.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. radio paradise is a superb streaming

Station...you should give it a try too!

[Warpy]

5. If you like fast dance music

which I do when I'm spinning on the stationary bike or spinning fiber on my wheel, give Beirut Nights a listen. It's an eclectic mix of world dance music.

I always knew things were bearable in part of the city as long as they were streaming, no matter what the news said.