In the textbook and lecture, dopamine is described as a neurotransmitter involved in movement, attention, motivation, learning, and reinforcement. This article related to the motivational salience effect of dopamine as not only was the emotional pleasure of music compared to levels of dopamine, but the motivation to listen to the pleasurable music again was also measured. There is a common misconception that dopamine is the neurotransmitter responsible for pleasure. In fact, dopamine is more involved in mechanisms that can lead to these pleasures, especially motivation, learning, and reinforcement.
Although levels of dopamine have an impact on motivation and musical pleasure, I am curious as to what exactly causes this pleasure. Do the sound waves of the music stimulate a specific signaling pathway that leads to these effects? I know some music sounds “sad” and some sounds “happy;” exactly what in the music leads to us biologically establishing these connotations, and how do they affect levels of dopamine?
Recent comments