Symphony of sensation: How music conducts our brain’s opioid orchestra
A groundbreaking imaging study reveals how pleasurable music activates the brain’s natural opioid receptors, providing first direct evidence that music taps into the same neural reward networks used for essential survival activities like eating and reproduction.
Music’s ability to evoke intense pleasure, sometimes experienced as delightful “chills,” involves the same brain opioid system that mediates rewards essential for survival, according to pioneering research from Finland’s Turku PET Centre. The study, published in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, offers unprecedented insight into the neurochemical mechanisms underlying our emotional responses to music.
Music activates reward centres typically reserved for survival needs
For the first time, scientists have directly demonstrated that listening to favourite music activates the brain’s μ-opioid receptor (MOR) system – a neural pathway traditionally associated with processing pleasure from biologically critical rewards such as food and sex.
The Finnish research team employed a sophisticated dual-imaging approach, using positron emission tomography (PET) to measure opioid release while participants listened to their self-selected pleasurable music. Additionally, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) examined how individual differences in opioid receptor density affected brain activation during musical enjoyment.
“These results show for the first time directly that listening to music activates the brain’s opioid system. The release of opioids explains why music can produce such strong feelings of pleasure, even though it is not a primary reward necessary for survival or reproduction, like food or sexual pleasure,” says Academy Research Fellow Vesa Putkinen from the University of Turku.
Opioid release correlates with pleasurable “chills”
The research revealed significant increases in opioid activity across several brain regions known to be involved in reward processing, including the ventral striatum, amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole. Particularly telling was the finding that opioid release in the nucleus accumbens – a brain region central to experiencing pleasure – directly correlated with how frequently participants reported experiencing pleasurable chills while listening to music.
This connection between subjective musical pleasure and measurable neurochemical responses provides compelling evidence that aesthetic experiences recruit the same fundamental reward pathways that motivate biologically essential behaviours.
Individual differences in receptor density influence musical experience
The study also revealed another fascinating dimension to how our brains process musical pleasure. Individuals with naturally higher densities of opioid receptors showed stronger brain activation patterns when listening to enjoyable music – suggesting that inherent neurochemical differences may partly explain why people experience varying intensities of musical enjoyment.
“Individual variation in baseline MOR tone influenced pleasure-dependent haemodynamic responses during music listening in regions associated with interoceptive, sensorimotor, and reward processing,” the researchers note in their paper’s conclusion.
Implications for pain management and mental health treatment
Beyond advancing our understanding of music appreciation, these findings may have significant clinical applications, particularly in pain management – a connection already observed in medical settings where music therapy has demonstrated analgesic effects.
Professor Lauri Nummenmaa, one of the study’s authors, explains: “The brain’s opioid system is also involved in pain relief. Based on our findings, the previously observed pain-relieving effects of music may be due to music-induced opioid responses in the brain.”
The researchers suggest these insights could inform the development of more effective music-based therapies for pain management and potentially for treatment of various mental health conditions in which the opioid system plays a role.
Physiological evidence of musical arousal
The research team also gathered physiological data showing that pleasurable music induced measurable bodily responses. During musical enjoyment, participants exhibited increased heart rates and dilated pupils – physiological indicators of heightened autonomic arousal consistent with emotional engagement.
This comprehensive approach – combining neuroimaging, self-reporting, and physiological measurements – provides the most complete picture to date of how music affects both the brain and body through specific neurochemical pathways.
“These findings provide the first neuroimaging evidence that pleasurable music modulates MOR system function. The results indicate that the μ-opioid system governs complex aesthetic rewards in addition to biologically essential primary rewards,” the authors conclude.
The study points to a fascinating evolutionary paradox: music, which offers no obvious survival advantage, nonetheless engages neural mechanisms that evolved primarily to ensure survival and reproduction – suggesting that aesthetic experiences may be more fundamental to human experience than previously understood.
Reference
Putkinen, V., Seppälä, K., Harju, H., et. al (2025). Pleasurable music activates cerebral μ-opioid receptors: a combined PET-fMRI study. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. Published online April 4, 2025.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-025-07232-z
