A study has found that people who get goosebumps when listening to music are more in touch with their emotions.
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The findings have come from University of Southern California PhD student Matthew Sachs, whose paper on the subject – ‘Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music’ – has been published in the Oxford Academic.
Sachs argues that those who get goosebumps when listening to music have structural differences in the brain, with those individuals possessing “a higher volume of fibers that connects their auditory cortex to the areas associated with emotional processing, which means the two areas communicate better.”
Sachs employed the help of 20 people in order to conduct the study (with a 50/50 split on those wh0 felt chills when listening to their favourite songs and those who didn’t), and now hopes to put his findings to further tests in the future.
Speaking to Quartz, Sachs – who also plays the bassoon and the piano – said that his findings could also have an impact on how depressive disorders are treated.
“Depression causes an inability to experience pleasure of everyday things,” he explained. “You could use music with a therapist to explore feelings.”
Sachs added that he hopes to conduct research involving patients with manic-depressive disorder and music in the near future.