Musical Thrills Are Explained as a Rush of Dopamine to the Brain ...
blogs.discovermagazine.com/.../musical-thrills-are-explained-as-a-rus...
Jan 10, 2011 – Mind & Brain | depression & happiness | Those delicious chills you get as your favorite piece of music reaches its climax? They're the result of a ...


On Music, Dopamine, and Making Sense of Sound | SharpBrains
http://www.sharpbrains.com/.../on-mu...ing-sense-of-s...
May 15, 2012 – Daniel Levitin, in This Is Your Brain On Music, suggests the following sound experiment.............
The Dopamine Connection

Our emotional response to music is handled by the amygdala, cerebellum and nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumens is also involved in the release of dopamine, which helps control physical movement, as well as feelings of pleasure and addiction. In this 57 second video, Daniel Levitin dis*cusses the impact of dopamine in the brain. (Scroll down for the video.) The role of the nucleus accum*bens is particularly interestng to me as I facilitate movement sessions for people who have mobility limitations.

In a person with Parkinson’s Disease, the release of dopamine is blocked. The nucleus accumbens is part of the basal ganglia, and in someone with Parkinson’s 50 to 60 percent of the neurons in the basal ganglia begin to deteriorate, resulting in a loss of dopamine. This loss of dopamine impacts the balance of excitation and inhibition of neurons. With this loss of balance in neuron firing, sigals sent from the brain are not being exe*cuted properly.
All of these symptoms are neurological. The body part is still functional, but the brain’s messaging sysem is no longer sending appropate signals to the body part. In other words, the hands and legs could still work just fine if the brain were able to get the mes*sages out to those body parts.

It turns out that music can facilitate movement for people who have Parkinson’s. It is as if the music massages the message, assisting the brain impulse in trav eling to its intended location. This seven minute PBS News Hour piece describes how Dance Helps Parkinson’s Patients Harness Therapeutic Power of Movement.


Pre*vi*ous arti*cles by Lau*rie Bartels: