Going to a rock festival , or simply turning up the volume on the stereo while listening to our favorite song, can be good for the brain. As Neil Todd and his colleagues at the University of Manchester (United Kingdom) have shown, when we listen to music at more than 90 decibels – a frequency similar to that produced by heavy truck traffic – an area of the inner ear known as sacculus stimulates the brain to release endorphins that make us feel pleasure . When multiple people come together to sing, whether it's in a choir or singing our team's anthem before a sporting event, this body reacts, too, Todd says.
This mechanism for the generation of pleasure by hearing is millions of years old, originated in fish and has been maintained in the evolutionary chain until it reaches human beings in a vestigial way.
