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India Today Conclave

If Music Gives You Goosebumps, Your Brain Might Be Special

The reason for that tingly feeling, explained.

21 March, 2018
If Music Gives You Goosebumps, Your Brain Might Be Special

Whether it's an Adele belter that gets you going, or you're more of a classical symphony lady, we've all had that experience of a piece of music being so good that it gives us the chills.

So why do we get that goosebump-y feeling, where shivers run down our spines and the hairs on our arms stand on end?

Well, the experience is called a frisson; although it's been dubbed a "skin orgasm" by some researchers. Scientists have explained it as an evolutionary leftover from our early ancestors, who kept themselves warm through a layer of heat trapped in their (much hairier) skin. Experiencing goosebumps after a rapid change of temperature raised then lowered these hairs, resetting this layer of warmth.

Luckily, we have clothes instead of hair to keep warm these days, but the physiological response is still in place — basically, we're wired to produce these "chills" as a reaction to stimuli, except now it's beauty in art or nature, rather than a change in temperature, that prompts them to occur.

Studies have also suggested that those who get these chills may have a unique brain. Research by Utah State University found that since not everyone gets these goosebumps, if you do, it means you may have an ability to experience intense emotions. "We found that people who frequently get chills to music have more fibers connecting the auditory cortex to these emotional feeling and emotional processing states," said USC PhD student Matt Sachs, who worked on the study "Brain Connectivity Reflects Human Aesthetic Responses to Music."

This is unsurprising given that people who possess the trait have been shown to appreciate beauty and nature more, have unusually active imaginations and really engage with the music they listen to.

Listen to more of what Sachs has to say below:

From: Good Housekeeping UK

Credit: Cosmopolitan
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