So that’s why Iman could not stand stop listening to music for more than a few hours, he is surely totally addicted to it.
And may be that’s the answer many people were looking for, the explanation for the purpose of music in human societies,.. it does not seem to have a purpose, but if it is an addiction, no wonder it is so valuable.
Our brain responds to rewards like food, psychoactive drugs, money, sex, and the response is dopamine, the molecule of happiness. Of course, many of these stimuli are essential for survival, it motivates us to do things primordial for the perpetuation of the species,…but music?? Not really essential, however it produces the same dopamine production.
This study in Nature has effectively provided the formal proof that the intense pleasure experienced when listening to music is associated with dopamine activity, in the reward system of the brain, just as it is the case when we take cocaine. Of course, participants were listening to their favorite music, but they were only allowed to pick up instrumental pieces, with no lyrics, researchers did not want emotions triggered by words, as this would have confounded the results. Participants had a 6-9 % increase of dopamine level when compared with a control condition, and a very high individual got even a 21% increase. Ok, cocaine has the reputation to increase dopamine up to 150%, but it’s a start!
But there is even a more subtle aspect to the whole study: for a drug addict, we know that dopamine is released in anticipation of the uptake of the drug, and it works the same way for any reward as a matter of fact.