Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have proved what audiophiles have known all along: listening to music is better than having sex. OK, so I’ve tweaked that introduction just a little, because what Dr. Robert Zatorre, neuroscientist at The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, at McGill University, actually discovered was that: “the pleasurable experience of listening to music releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain important for the more tangible pleasures associated with rewards such as food, drugs and sex.” The results of his research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, are one key to the reason why music, which has no obvious survival value, is so significant across all human societies.
“These findings provide neurochemical evidence that intense emotional responses to music involve ancient reward circuitry in the brain,”…
