by Sam Meaghan Contributor

People who don't like music have a disconnected brain, research claims

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People who don't like music have a disconnected brain, research claims Photo:

Music may be all over the world, in the airwaves, on the internet, everywhere, but some people still just do not like it. 

Now, researchers have attempted to find out why a certain group of people just don't take to music the way others do. 

With the help of fMRI scans to track the participant's brain activity, reseachers have found that people have less blood flow to the brain's reward networks when exposed to music. 

This suggests that people who have a natural distaste to music, have a less functioning connectivity between the auditory processing and the reward centres. 

According to Ars Technica, these findings provide further support for the theory that the pleasure that comes from music stems from interactions between the auditory neural networks and and the brain's reward networks. 

The research, that was published to PNAS, consisted of three groups of 15 participants, all with a different opinion towards music. 

One group was considered indifferent, another was considered "normal", and the third group was for participants who gained intense pleasure from music. 

All three groups were asked to provide two pieces of emotionally relevant instrumental pieces of music, which for those who are indifferent proved quite difficult. 

As the participants listened to music, the researchers got fMRI images of their brain activity. 

The findings suggested that that there is no problem with the reward networks, but instead revealed low blood pressure that means the listeners simply do not derive any pleasure from music. 

The authors of the research wrote: "The study provides direct evidence supporting the model of reward-auditory cortex interaction as underlying musical pleasure: people who do not experience that pleasure have selectively reduced responses in that system".

Authors finally noted that the interaction between these regions may be 'pivotal' to how we respond to music. 

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Sam Meaghan

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