A new study explores the cause of musical anhedonia.

MADRID (EFE).— Specific musical anhedonia is a condition in which some people—a few of them—don't like music: they are insensitive to it and don't feel pleasure from listening to it, despite having normal hearing and the ability to enjoy other experiences or stimuli. Why does it occur?

Research points to a disconnect between brain regions, specifically between the reward circuit—the neural system that allows us to associate situations like eating or sex with a feeling of pleasure—and the auditory network.

Behind this work is a team of researchers from the University of Barcelona (UB), the same team that discovered ten years ago that there is a small group of people who don't enjoy music. It is speculated that this represents around 3% of the population.

On that occasion, after several experiments with a group of 30 volunteers, scientists found that people with this specific anhedonia did not show an increase in cardiac activity or skin conductance (a measurement of sweating) when listening to pleasant music, as did those sensitive to melodies.

Now, in a review article published in “Trends in Cognitive Sciences from Cell Press,” they go further.

In it, the authors describe the brain mechanisms underlying this condition and discuss how understanding them might reveal other differences in how people experience pleasure.

They also cite the scientific literature published on this condition over the years and propose a brain model—not just for music—that suggests that reward experiences depend both on the functioning of the reward system and on its specific interactions with the perceptual network.

In this sense, they point out that it is possible, for example, that people with specific food anhedonia have some deficit in the connectivity between the brain regions involved in food processing and the reward circuit.

To reach their conclusions and identify musical anhedonia, the scientists conducted several tests with 45 people, divided into three groups (with high, medium, and low emotional response to music), explains Josep Marco-Pallarés, from the Department of Cognition, Development, and Educational Psychology at the UB and one of the signatories.

Researchers, including Ernest Mas-Herrero, developed a tool (the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire) that measures how rewarding music is for an individual.

This examines five different ways in which music can be comforting: by evoking emotions; helping regulate mood; fostering social connections; through dance or movement; and as something novel to seek out, collect, or experience, explains a statement from the Cell group.

People with musical anhedonia often score low on all five aspects.

In addition, participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while listening to various pieces, including "The Four Seasons," to measure brain electrical activity.

These studies supported the idea that specific musical anhedonia is due to a disconnect between brain areas. These individuals can perceive and process musical melodies, meaning their auditory brain circuits are intact, but they simply don't derive pleasure from doing so.

Similarly, MRIs showed that when listening to music, individuals with musical anhedonia had reduced activity in the reward system, but a normal level of activity in response to other rewarding stimuli, such as winning money, indicating that this circuit is intact.

This lack of pleasure in music is explained by the disconnection between the reward circuit and the perceptual areas, in this case the auditory network, and not by the functioning of the reward system itself, Marco-Pallarés argues.

It's still unclear why this condition develops, but studies have shown that both genetics and environment may play a role. The team is collaborating with geneticists to identify specific genes and also plans to investigate whether it's a stable trait or something that changes throughout life, and whether it can be reversed.

Group Tests

In the study of musical anhedonia there were MRIs and measurements.

Conclusions

To reach their conclusions and identify the condition, the scientists evaluated 45 people, divided into three groups: those with a high, medium, and low emotional response to music.