Music is a universally binding beauty of life. From the moment a tune or melody hits our ears, it has an unparalleled ability to stir neurological and emotional responses in the brain. But what truly goes on inside our minds when we listen to music?

In this post, I hope to decode some of the relationship between our brains and music to help us understand how and why music can be so important. Researching this topic taught me a lot, so I hope you learn things from this too.

Our brains are wired to find patterns in things, regardless of whether or not they exist. Music is a combination of a pattern of tunes, rhythms, vocals, and so much more. So naturally, our brains are predisposed to notice and absorb these tones in music.

It all starts with identifying how the brain perceives and understands language. As sound vibrations come in through the ear, they are sent over to the auditory nerve in the form of electrical signals. These signals reach the auditory cortex of the brain, which is located in the midbrain. The auditory cortex is responsible for transforming these sound signals to understandable language.

Before diving into how our brain distinguishes music, there are some things to note about how the brain processes sounds. The brain is capable of sorting out sounds, which is why we hear a lot, but only process and pay attention to sounds that matter. The brain also detects whether the sound you heard was closer to one ear than the other to create a mental picture of your spatial surroundings. The brainstem and the thalamus use information from both ears to make sense of a sound's direction and location.

The processing of sound in the auditory cortex happens in stages. The low-level stages include detecting the loudness and pitch of the sound. The higher level ones include figuring out the source of the sound and its category (for example, whether the sounds are produced by speech).

The brain has two areas that are vital in the production and understanding of speech and language. The Wernicke's area is a part of the brain that is critical for understanding written and spoken language. This is where the brain translates sound to understandable language. For example, the Wernicke's area is activated when you listen to a song and simply understand the lyrics. The Broca's area is a region of the brain concerned with the production of speech, located in the cortex of the dominant frontal lobe. This is where the brain produces speech and activates the motor neurons responsible for speech. For example, this area is activated when you sing your favorite song.

While the primary areas of the brain responsible for the reception and production of music are the language centers for understanding and speech, there are other really useful and important regions of the brain that are involved with music.

The second biggest factor to consider is empathy and emotional processing. Music can reach into people's brains and bring out their emotional side. It does so mainly through the amygdala, the insular cortex, and the hypothalamus. Listening to music has been linked to a release of oxytocin (love) and dopamine (reward), as well as a reduction in cortisol (stress) levels in the brain. This explains why music seems to invoke such a deep, emotional feeling in us.

Let's dive a little deeper into this. Why is it that we have some favorite songs/genres/vibes of music? This is due to something called a prediction error. It is easy to understand this. A prediction error occurs when something unexpected happens. For example, when something is better than expected, dopamine is released in the brain, making you gain more interest in the song you are listening to. However, if a song is worse than expected, dopamine is reduced in the brain, making you lose interest in a song.

This explains why "catchy" songs only live on for so long, because at first, it gives us a positive prediction error (it is better than we expected), but soon, after hearing the song on repeat, we lose the prediction error and soon know what to expect, which is how we lose interest in a song.

Now obviously this is not the case for all songs, which is why we all have our favorite genres and playlists of songs. This is where the prediction error and the empathy regions are tied together. For example, when you first listen to a song and have a high prediction error, you add that to your liked songs or a playlist. Then, you listen to it while thinking of a certain memory or even living in a certain situation. This is where you tie in your likeness of a song with pocket of emotion. That's when you've packaged this bite-sized tune into a favorite song. Once you've tied a song with a memory, you receive an emotional response from the amygdala and the insular cortex (both regions responsible for the emotional processing of music) each time you play it, so that explains why some songs can just transport you back in time to a certain memory or situation.

I want to end on how music can be extremely beneficial for us. The brain has a region called the default mode network (DMN) that is most active when you are passive. It is deeply involved in daydreaming, thinking, rumination, self-awareness, and so on. Research has shown that listening to your favorite music can actually increase activity in the DMN and lead to better self-awareness, more empathy, and even increased thought. It overall has a good positive effect on mental health, and can lead to increased work and school performance.

There is more to know about the creation of music and how two musicians have synced brain activity when producing or listening to music together. It is absolutely fascinating to learn about how our brain responds to music.