Why Your Brain Needs Music

According to Science Magazine, music triggers activity in the part of the brain that releases dopamine, know as the 'pleasure chemical', making you happy.

Dopamine is also released during sex, eating and drives addictive behavior.

Valorie Salimpoor, a neuroscientist at McGill University, says, "Music also activates the amygdala which is involved with the processing of emotion, as well as areas of the prefrontal cortex involved in abstract decisionmaking."

In a study done by Salimpoor where subjects would be played the first 30 seconds of songs they have never heard before while lying in an fMRI machine. The subjects were then asked how much they would pay for each song between zero and $2 to guage how much they liked each song. Researchers found that the songs that triggered the strongest response from both the emotional and intellectual parts of the brain were correlated with a willingness to pay more money suggesting that people not only get an emotional reward from music but also an intellectual one.