What does science have to say about the endorphin rush I get from listening to Taylor Hicks?

Here’s an embedded YouMind’sEye video on the concept of imprinting: [Start video] We see a little gosling hatching from an egg, its shaky head turns and it sees a mother goose. Gosling imprints on mom, and we see an idealized pond with a line of cute baby birds trailing behind her. Cut to biologists using handpuppets to raise orphaned goslings, preventing them from imprinting on humans. Next we see the adolescent birds learning to fly, and then learning to migrate by following an ultralight. Next we see a human baby grinning at his mother’s breast; after which a group of teenagers is shown bonding and listening to music that satisfies their need to rebel, to establish themselves as individuals. [End video]

Neuroscientists used to think that the brain only imprinted on things (mom, food, music) during certain fixed developmental periods, and once that period was over the brain would reject the foreign and new. But studies have concluded that animal brains are more fluid and flexible than previously thought. We can imprint on things outside of the developmental periods, just less readily. New theory says imprinting is mainly a process of addiction. You experience something through your senses and, if all goes well, your brain registers pleasure through the release of endorphins. If you return to the same pleasure enough times, an expanded and permanent neural path is created in your brain, ensuring you keep going back for more. Yin and yang: imprinting is the positive aspect of addiction.

As teenagers we need to finish the development of the cerebral cortex, so we deeply imprint on the music we listen to during those years. This is not a post asking you to list the music you loved as a teenager. Instead, how do we imprint as adults when the imprinting is a slower and less automatic process? You listen to a musician for the first time: there’s a tingle of interest, pleasure, something familiar, yet foreign. In fact, the neuroscientists say the experience has to seem a little familiar to activate that first mild endorphin release. I hear you, you are muttering, “Well, duh! Of course, I listen repeatedly to music I like.” My question is: who’s really in charge here? You got a mild shot of endorphins from hearing something the first time, and then you amplified the pleasure pathway in your brain through repetition. Over time, the music has activated enough endorphins to make you addicted. You think you are choosing to listen again, but perhaps it’s more like you need to listen again.

This is not to say you will imprint on any musician that you listen to; if you feel aversion to the music, you stop listening. Here’s a strange aspect of our brain’s fluidity: There is a theory that, even in adults, food aversions can be ameliorated by repeated exposure. Tasting a hated food more than 30 times will begin to transform the brain itself and make the flavor more familiar, and familiar becomes a mild form of enjoyment. You could experiment with a music genre or a song that you don’t like and try to cultivate less distaste for it through repetition. If you don’t want to clutter your brain with something you dislike, pick a less loved song of a musician you do like, and listen to that song more than 30 times in as short a time as possible. What happens?

Our friend “what” previously asked us to discuss the experience of emotion when listening to music. I suggest we have to imprint on an artist to get the maximum endorphin rush. That is, there are levels of emotional reaction to music, and part of the intensity can be explained by your brain on the drug of the musician. Deep imprinting, imprinting that we participate in with our intellect and our emotions, makes certain music necessary to us. For example, I could no more go without Van Morrison in my life than I could a sip of fine wine or a caress. Of course I could live without him, but I would suffer withdrawal. Van has been carefully cultivated in my brain over two decades of adult life. Taylor Hicks has managed to do the same in a year and a half. How?


He did it by accessing pathways already created by Van Morrison. Some familiar ostinato vocal riffs, emotional commitment, harmonica work with overtones of jazz and blues, hints of spiritual themes—all these elements hijacked old pathways. So, he had a shortcut to my pleasure centers. I widened Hicks-specific endorphin pathways through repetition, repetition, repetition. Here’s the best part: after I had imprinted on Taylor Hicks, I found that his repeated musical references to Van Morrison made me crave Van more than I ever did before. The feedback loop expanded and deepened.

What music have you imprinted on as an adult? By “imprinted” I mean, you need the music and the musician. Your brain would not let you give up this music without a struggle. I think it’s possible to enjoy certain music without imprinting on it, so why not explore why you have or have not imprinted on certain music. Were there barriers you couldn’t overcome with some music?

categories: music, thought
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