Music has existed since prehistory because it helps us express and regulate emotions, and it brings us pleasure. In his lecture “From Perception to Pleasure: The Neuroscience of Music and Why We Love It,” Robert Zatorre, PhD, uses cognitive neuroscience to explain how perceiving sound patterns leads to these pleasurable responses. First, Zatorre shares evidence that connections between the auditory cortex and other parts of the brain handle not only perception but also the working memory, sensory-motor, and predictive functions essential for making and perceiving music. Next, he presents his lab’s neuroimaging and brain modulation studies on the dopamine reward system, its role in musical pleasure, and what happens when it’s disrupted. Zatorre proposes that musical pleasure arises from interactions between cortical loops (which allow expectations to emerge from sound patterns) and subcortical systems responsible for reward, valuation, and pleasure. This model connects basic neuroscience reward mechanisms with music theory concepts like tension and anticipation and may also serve as a broader way to think about aesthetic rewards.

 

Robert Zatorre was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After studying psychology and music in the United States, he carried out postdoctoral work with Brenda Milner at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University, where he currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience. His laboratory studies the neural substrates of two characteristically human abilities: speech and music. Together with his many students and collaborators, he’s published more than 300 scientific papers on topics including pitch perception, auditory imagery, music production, and brain plasticity. He’s perhaps best known for discovering how the brain’s reward system results in musical pleasure.

In 2006, Zatorre co-founded the International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research (BRAMS), a multi-university consortium dedicated to the study of music and the brain. His work has been recognized with numerous international prizes, including the Neuronal Plasticity Prize from the Ipsen Foundation, the Netherlands’ C. L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science, and the Grand Prix Scientifique from Paris’s Fondation Pour l’Audition. His comprehensive book From Perception to Pleasure: The Neuroscience of Music and Why We Love It was published in 2024 by Oxford University Press.

 

For more information on this topic and about Robert Zatorre’s work, visit zlab.mcgill.ca.