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Musical anhedonia or indifference to music
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Recent neurobiological research has shown that there are people who do not enjoy listening to music. The study was conducted by Spanish scientists and its results were published in the journal Current Biology.
One of the researchers at the University of Barcelona, Josep Marco-Pollares, notes that revealing such people will significantly help to understand the neural nature of music, in other words, to understand how a set of notes can cause an emotional outburst.
The condition in people when there is no reaction to any musical works, experts called "musical anhedonia" (anhedonia is a decrease or loss of the ability to receive pleasure). At the same time, such people were able to receive pleasure from other pleasant stimuli.
The researchers divided the volunteers into three groups of 10 people. Each group included people with low, medium, and high levels of musical sensitivity. The scientists conducted two experiments in which the sensitivity of people in each group was studied. In the first experiment, the level of pleasure experienced from favorite pieces of music was assessed; in the second, the participants had to quickly determine the desired goal in order to ultimately earn a reward in the form of money or not lose the amount they already had.
As a result, the scientists determined that in both cases, the brain's nerve regions responsible for pleasure were activated, while the body experienced a release of the hormone dopamine, which is also called the "pleasure hormone." The research team noted that there was also a disturbance in heart rhythm and the level of electrical resistance of the skin, which were indicators of emotional reactions.
As a result, scientists determined that some people (with a normal level of sound sensitivity) did not have an autoimmune response to musical sounds, while they were quite cheerful and happy, but did not receive any pleasure from music at all. But such people had a completely natural reaction to monetary reward, which indicates that low musical sensitivity is not related to serious deviations in the work of certain parts of the brain.
As the researchers note, their findings may help in treating certain addictions. The hypothesis that people are able to respond to one type of reward while being indifferent to another allows us to assume that the assessment of this brain work may be different, and this also allows us to judge that the effectiveness of some pathways for a certain category of people may be higher than for others. In addition, the researchers found that sensitivity to music may reduce the risk of developing depression and hearing problems.
Other studies by British scientists have found that people with higher education are less likely to be obese because they pay more attention to healthy eating.