Humans have some of the “BEST” hearing in all of the animal kingdom. But most animals need their hearing to live, and have thusly gained more sensitive receptors to sounds than humans. Sometimes, it even takes over another sense’s purpose. So why can I say that a human’s hearing is “better” than those other animals? It’s not really because of a more acute sense of hearing – instead, it’s from our ability to interpret it, expressed in language and beautifully articulated in music.
Now what could a few sounds falling into place even do? As it turns out, a lot. A large and well-studied aspect of music is that it can activate parts of your brain while you’re listening to or creating music. Some of these parts can be particularly special and correlate to things like reward stimulus, motor control, and communication (Trost et al. 2011). It’s been shown that listening to songs of different moods can trigger more intense versions of emotions than other activities (Zentner et al. 2008). On top of stronger feelings, music has also demonstrated therapeutic effects for brain injury.
Mostly, the areas that the brain would activate would be dependent on how exciting the feeling elicited by the song was. Highly exciting music-related feelings, like tension, joy, or power would activate the parts of your brain that would control your sensory and motor functions. Less exciting music-related feelings would engage the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, both associated with emotion regulation and memory (Trost et al. 2011). Sometimes, they would also excite certain areas based on a feeling. Songs that elicited positive feelings tended to excite the striatum, a part of the brain commonly associated with reward processing and motivation. Positive and exciting feelings you get from songs, like wonder and joy, excited the left striatum and insula, also associated with reward processing and emotion (Figure 1). Less exciting, but still positive emotions excited the right striatum and orbitofrontal cortex, associated with decision-making and emotional regulation. In general, music also activated areas of networks correlated to reward, memory, self-reflective, and sensorimotor processes, pointing towards music’s depth in felt emotions (Trost et al. 2011).
So what does this mean? In simple terms, listening to music can help you enjoy a task more (that is, if you’re not too busy enjoying the song). By listening to a song, you can reward your brain while you slog away at a task. It can even improve your focus on a task by reducing brain fog (Kiss and Linnell 2021).
Figure 1: A map showing every key structure of the brain involved in processing information from music. The learning aspect shows the parts involved while the brain is receiving constant stimuli (Vuust et al. 2022).
On top of emotions, music has also shown to have limited healing effects. A study was performed on patients recovering from brain injury, which included things like strokes, injury, or neurodegenerative conditions. The music-based therapy that was employed suggested notable improvements in upper-body function, communication, and cognitive rehabilitation, among other improvements (Navarro et al. 2026). This therapy involved creating, listening, and improvising music. Moreover, it was found among dementia patients that those who listened to music while playing a game improved faster than other patients performing the same task (Sener et al. 2017).
In summary, music is more than the thing you put on when you’re working on an assignment/paper. It is a powerful emotional stimulant, and helps you study. It can even boost the healing of those with brain problems. And the next time you play your songs while you work, be grateful that we have the faculties to.
References
Kiss, Luca, and Karina J. Linnell. “The Effect of Preferred Background Music on Task-Focus in Sustained Attention.” Psychological Research 85, no. 6 (2021): 2313–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-020-01400-6.
Navarro, Laura, Nour EL Mallah, Jacobo Pardo-Seco, et al. Systematic Review and meta-analysis reveal positive therapeutic effects of music in Brain Damage Rehabilitation, January 12, 2026. https://doi.org/10.37766/inplasy2026.1.0042.
Sener, Ceylin G., Tuna Yelken, Hulya Ozen, and Demet Ozbabalik. “[P4–323]: The Effect of Listening to Rhythmic Music on Brain Training Game Scores in Patients with Alzheimer’s Dementia.” Alzheimer’s & Dementia 13, no. 7S_Part_29 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jalz.2017.06.2193.
Trost, Wiebke, Thomas Ethofer, Marcel Zentner, and Patrik Vuilleumier. “Mapping Aesthetic Musical Emotions in the Brain.” Cerebral Cortex 22, no. 12 (2011): 2769–83. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhr353.
Vuust, Peter, Ole A. Heggli, Karl J. Friston, and Morten L. Kringelbach. “Music in the Brain.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 23 (March 29, 2022). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-022-00578-5.
Zentner, Marcel, Didier Grandjean, and Klaus R. Scherer. “Emotions Evoked by the Sound of Music: Characterization, Classification, and Measurement.” Emotion 8, no. 4 (2008): 494–521. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.8.4.494.
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