A recent study has discovered that listening to new music can be beneficial and stimulating for brains.

Canadian scientists have found that part of our brain becomes particularly active when we hear a song for the first time, and that areas of the brain’s reward centres become stimulated by this activity.

The more a listener enjoys what they are hearing, the stronger the connections are in the region of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. This nucleus is known as the brain’s pleasure centre and is thought to play an important role in reward, pleasure, laughter and addiction.

A total of 19 volunteers were played 60 excerpts of new music each, whilst their brain activity was monitored by MRI scanning. After listening to 30 seconds of each song these volunteers were able to ‘purchase’ their favourite new tracks in a pretend online music store.

By analyzing the scans, scientists at the McGill University in Montreal could see which songs were stimulating each volunteers brain and to what extent. They were then able to predict what tracks each person would buy.

Dr. Valorie Salimpoor, one of the researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute, had this to say of her team’s recent discoveries:

“As they are listening to this music, we can look at their brain activity and figure out how they are appreciating or enjoying this music before they even tell us anything,

"When people listen to a piece of music they have never heard before, activity in one brain region can reliably and consistently predict whether they will like or buy it. 

"What makes music so emotionally powerful is the creation of expectations. Activity in the nucleus accumbens is an indicator that expectations were met or surpassed. In our study we found the more activity we see in this brain area while people are listening to music, the more money they are willing to spend."