How one's favorite song activates the reward circuitry of the brain: Personality matters!

The present fMRI study investigates individual differences in human brain activity during listening to one's favorite and one's most unlikeable song. In 33 participants, we found that the contrast of listening to pleasant versus unpleasant music revealed a robust activation of the ventral striatum, the caudate nucleus and the insula across a group of participants. Moreover, we could demonstrate that activity within the ventral striatum was modulated by the subscale ‘self-forgetfulness’ of the character dimension ‘self-transcendence’.

► Listening to one's favorite song triggers the reward circuit of the brain. ► Personality modulates the strength of the nucleus accumbens activation. ► ‘Self-forgetfulness’ represents the key personality trait in this study.