Modulating musical reward sensitivity up and down with transcranial magnetic stimulation

Ernest Mas-Herrero, Alain Dagher and Robert J. Zatorre ()
Additional contact information
Ernest Mas-Herrero: Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University
Alain Dagher: Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University
Robert J. Zatorre: Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University

Nature Human Behaviour, 2018, vol. 2, issue 1, 27-32

Abstract: Abstract Humans have the unique capacity to experience pleasure from aesthetic stimuli, such as art and music. Recent neuroimaging findings with music have led to a model in which mesolimbic striatal circuits interact with cortical systems to generate expectancies leading to pleasure 1,2 . However, neuroimaging approaches are correlational. Here, we provide causal evidence for the model by combining transcranial magnetic stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to directly modulate fronto-striatal function 3 bidirectionally together with measures of pleasure and motivation during music listening. Our results show that perceived pleasure, psychophysiological measures of emotional arousal, and the monetary value assigned to music, are all significantly increased by exciting fronto-striatal pathways, whereas inhibition of this system leads to decreases in all of these variables compared with sham stimulation. These findings support the hypothesis that fronto-striatal function causally mediates both the affective responses and motivational aspects of music-induced reward, and provide insights into how aesthetic responses emerge in the human brain.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0241-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nathum:v:2:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41562-017-0241-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0241-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta

More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().