{"id":479493,"date":"2026-03-17T01:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479493\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T01:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:00:07","slug":"music-provides-great-value-to-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479493\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Provides Great Value to the Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent article about music is currently enjoying wide circulation.1 In it, we learn that our brains are hardwired to respond emotionally to music.2 The author illustrates this concept through the story of a man whose brain does not respond emotionally to music. His condition is called musical anhedonia<\/a>, and it affects roughly 5 percent of people.3<\/p>\n

Tests of this man\u2019s brain reveal the cause of his condition. He lacks strong neural connections\u2014the hardwiring between the hearing (auditory) system and the emotional (limbic) system in his brain. In clear and accessible language, the article explains how we come to like music. But not why we like music.4<\/p>\n

To answer the why question, we need to explore the evolutionary value of music. Consider this: 95 percent of people do respond emotionally to music, and this response is hardwired into our brains through our genes<\/a>, so it must be important. So important, in fact, that it promotes the most important goals<\/a> of evolution: our survival and procreation as a species. Let\u2019s look at several reasons to explain this.5<\/p>\n

First, the human brain pays close attention<\/a> to the near future. It constantly makes predictions based on past experience about what will happen next. This ability is valuable \u201cbecause an organism can more effectively prepare an appropriate response to an event if that event can be predicted.\u201d6 Like any skill, prediction improves with practice, and music helps the brain practice this ability.<\/p>\n

One leading explanation for our emotional response to music is called the prediction model. According to this model, the brain uses its knowledge of musical structure\u2014the rules that determine which sounds typically follow others in a particular style of music\u2014to predict what will come next.7 Our emotional response stems from the music either following these expectations or breaking them. These emotional reactions influence whether we like or dislike a piece of music. They also bind us to the practice of using music to strengthen our prediction skills.<\/p>\n

Second, music helps people live and work together. Humans are social creatures. Our social nature developed out of necessity because even a healthy individual cannot face many of nature\u2019s challenges alone. Music plays an important role in helping people connect with one another. This is true across the entire age spectrum. In a nutshell, \u201cMaking music together is simultaneously building a community together, which is considered by many to be the most adaptive and the most evolutionarily significant aspect of musical experience worldwide.\u201d8<\/p>\n

Because music provides these pro-social benefits, humans have evolved strong emotional connections to it. These emotional ties draw us to music automatically, no conscious thought required. As a result, the benefits of music are available to us at all times.<\/p>\n

The strong emotional bond between people and music supports the idea that music is valuable to human life. Two social psychologists who reviewed a variety of studies on this topic summarized their findings this way: \u201cPeople\u2019s emotional responses to music are intricately tied to the . . . core social phenomena that bind us together into groups. In sum, this work establishes human musicality as a special form of social cognition<\/a> [social intelligence<\/a>] and provides . . .\u2008direct support for the hypothesis that music evolved as a tool of social living.\u201d9<\/p>\n

Third, music can also help our conscious mind manage our inner emotional world. Even when we try to avoid them, our conscious thoughts are often interrupted by unwanted emotions or feelings that arise from the subconscious<\/a>. At other times, unwelcome thoughts appear and trigger negative emotions. These mental intrusions can sometimes influence our behavior in ways we would prefer to avoid.<\/p>\n

Several strategies exist for dealing with this common problem. One of the most effective is engaging with music. Our conscious mind has learned to leverage music\u2019s influence on the subconscious. In fact, the most common reason why people choose to listen to music is to alter their mood.10 Music, therefore, becomes a tool that the conscious mind can use when unwelcome thoughts or feelings threaten to overwhelm it.<\/p>\n

Feeling down? Play upbeat music to lift your mood. Feeling anxious<\/a>? Listen to calm, soothing music to relax. Feeling bored<\/a>? Try music from an unfamiliar style and explore new sounds.<\/p>\n

Our emotional connection to music is so deeply built into the brain that these techniques can be remarkably powerful. They can even help people whose memory<\/a> and cognition are severely damaged. Research has shown that people with Alzheimer\u2019s disease can still understand the emotional meaning of music and respond appropriately when they hear it.11<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recent article about music is currently enjoying wide circulation.1 In it, we learn that our brains are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-479493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}