Failure to communicate in the brain may be behind indifference to music

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Music is popular in almost all human societies, but there are some people who just don't seem to be into it, no matter how stirring. Studying those who don’t like music can provide insight into why the rest of us do, and more general insights into human behavior.

Earlier neuroimaging studies demonstrated that music-induced pleasure may arise from the interaction between auditory neural networks and the brain’s reward networks. A recent study published in PNAS shows that people who don’t like music have lower brain activity in both these systems when they're listening to tunes.

The study in question used functional MRI scans to track brain activity in three groups of 15 participants. One group was indifferent to music, one group had normal reactions to it, and the last group derived intense pleasure from music. Musicians were excluded from the sample, to reduce bias that might be introduced by including participants trained in producing music.