Get Goosebumps from Music? You May Be More in Touch with Your Emotions, Study Finds

BY Brock ThiessenPublished Sep 5, 2017

If you get goosebumps when you listen to music, you might be more in touch with your emotions, according to a new study.

The findings were published in a new paper called "Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music" by University of Southern California PhD student Matthew Sachs, whose work has now been published in the Oxford Academic, NME points out.

In the study, Sachs argues those who get goosebumps when listening to music have structural differences in the brain, with those goosebumps-experiencing listeners 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."

As a result, Sachs is hoping his finding could help those suffering from depression.

"Depression causes an inability to experience pleasure of everyday things," he told Quartz. "You could use music with a therapist to explore feelings."

While this initial study by Sachs was small, he stated that he hopes to conduct more research on those suffering from depression in the near future to expand his findings.

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