Why Some People Do Not Experience Pleasure from Music

Specific musical anhedonia describes people who hear and process music normally but experience no pleasure from it. Researchers link the condition to disrupted communication between auditory-processing areas and the brain's reward network. Their work also suggests that responses to music, food, social contact and other rewards depend on partly distinct networks. Understanding those connections may offer clues for research into individual differences and reward-related conditions such as anhedonia, addiction and eating disorders.

About a decade ago, researchers identified a small group of people with normal hearing who enjoyed other experiences but not music. In a paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, the team discussed the condition's neural mechanisms and why it may help explain differences in how people experience pleasure. “Similar mechanisms may explain individual differences in responses to other rewards,” said Josep Marco-Pallarés, a neuroscientist at the University of Barcelona and an author of the paper. He described possible research directions for reward-related disorders, not established treatments.

To identify musical anhedonia, the researchers developed the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ). It assesses five dimensions of reward from music: emotional evocation, mood regulation, social connection, dance or bodily movement, and novelty seeking through discovering or collecting music. People with musical anhedonia scored substantially lower across these dimensions in the research described.

Behavioral and brain-imaging findings indicate that affected people can perceive melodies and process music, yet receive little pleasure from it. Functional MRI showed reduced reward-circuit activity while they listened to music, although responses to another reward, winning money, remained normal. That pattern points to a difference in connectivity between auditory and reward networks, rather than a general failure of the reward circuit.

“The absence of pleasure from music arises from an abnormal connection between the reward circuit and the auditory network, not a malfunction of the reward circuit itself,” Marco-Pallarés explained. Co-author and neuroscientist Ernest Mas-Herrero added that a broadly impaired reward circuit would reduce pleasure from all rewards. Their findings instead emphasize interactions between the reward circuit and brain areas that process a particular kind of reward.

The cause of the condition remains uncertain; genetic and environmental factors may both play a part. A twin study cited by the researchers suggested that genetic effects may account for as much as 54% of differences in people's enjoyment of music. Responses to rewards vary even among healthy people, but research on specific types of reward is limited, in part because many studies have treated reward response as all-or-nothing. Marco-Pallarés proposed looking for other specific forms of anhedonia, such as a possible disruption between food-processing areas and reward circuits in people who gain little pleasure from particular foods.

The team is working with geneticists to identify genes that may be associated with musical anhedonia. It also plans to examine whether the condition is stable throughout life or can change, and whether musical anhedonia or similar conditions can be reversed.

Original report: The Hearing Review.