• Question: does every part of the human brain react to music

    Asked by werewolfscience to Thomas on 17 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Thomas Biggans

      Thomas Biggans answered on 17 Jun 2016:

      Not every part but music does active more than one area of the brain.

      The auditory cortex is the part of the brain that handles the signals from your ears so know what you’re listening to.

      Your frontal lobe (which you can think of as the area you use to think) picks out memories that are related to the music from your hippocampus. This might just be the lyrics to the song or times when you’ve heard the song before.

      Music is known to be quite emotional and these emotions cause activation in your amygdala.

      If you start tapping your feet or dancing then the motor cortex will kick in too. So the brain does get quite involved with music perhaps that’s why we enjoy listening to it.

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