How music provides natural high of dopamine

People often speak of music giving them goosebumps - and now scientists know why.

When we are moved by music our brains behave as if reacting to delicious food, psychoactive drugs or money, research has shown.

The pleasure experience is driven by the "reward" chemical dopamine, which has been linked to addiction.

It produces physical effects known as "chills" that cause changes in the skin's electrical conductance, heart rate, breathing and temperature.

The responses correlate with the degree to which people rate the "pleasurability" of music, say the Canadian researchers.

The new research, reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, showed that dopamine release was greatest when listeners had a strong emotional response to music. The scientists wrote: "If music-induced emotional states can lead to dopamine release, as our findings indicate, it may begin to explain why musical experiences are so valued.

"These results further speak to why music can be effectively used in rituals, marketing or film to manipulate hedonic states.

"Our findings provide neurochemical evidence that intense emotional responses to music involve ancient reward circuitry and serve as a starting point for more detailed investigations of the biological substrates that underlie abstract forms of pleasure."