Some people with normal hearing do not enjoy listening to music. This condition is called musical angedonia and is caused by a violation of the relationship between auditory and stimulating neurons of the brain.
Researchers from the University of Barcelona first described this phenomenon ten years ago and continue to study it. According to them, people with this state do not have a connection between areas of the brain that are responsible for the perception of sounds and the processing of pleasure. At the same time, in response to other pleasant incentives, such as winning money, they have a normal reaction in the pleasure area.
To diagnose the condition, scientists have developed the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ) questionnaire, which evaluates five ways through which music can bring pleasure: emotional response, influence on mood, social ties, physical movement and desire for new experience. People with musical angedia show low results in all these areas.
MRI-study confirmed that in such people the auditory system works normally, but the signal from it is poorly transmitted to the pleasure center. This means that the problem is not in the perception of music, but in how the brain processes an emotional returns from it.
The reasons for the development of the state are not completely clear, but scientists suggest that genes and the environment play a certain role. Recent studies on Gemini showed that heredity can explain up to 54% of differences in musical receptivity.
