Interactions Between the Nucleus Accumbens and Auditory Cortices Predict Music Reward Value
Salimpoor and colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine what happens when a piece of music acquires reward value on first hearing. Participants listened to unfamiliar music while being scanned and then bid real money for it in an auction, which replaces a rating scale with a behaviour carrying a number. Activity in the mesolimbic striatal regions, the nucleus accumbens especially, was the best predictor of how much a listener would spend. The auditory cortices, amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal regions all showed increased activity during listening conditions that required valuation, and their activity did not predict reward value. What predicted value instead was increasing functional connectivity between those regions and the nucleus accumbens as reward value rose. The authors conclude that aesthetic rewards arise from an interaction between mesolimbic reward circuitry and cortical networks involved in perceptual analysis and valuation, which is the finding this publication carries: the reward appears in a relationship between systems rather than at a site.
Salimpoor and colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine what happens when a piece of music acquires reward value on first hearing. Participants listened to unfamiliar music while being scanned and then bid real money for it in an auction, which replaces a rating scale with a behaviour carrying a number. Activity in the mesolimbic striatal regions, the nucleus accumbens especially, was the best predictor of how much a listener would spend. The auditory cortices, amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal regions all showed increased activity during listening conditions that required valuation, and their activity did not predict reward value. What predicted value instead was increasing functional connectivity between those regions and the nucleus accumbens as reward value rose. The authors conclude that aesthetic rewards arise from an interaction between mesolimbic reward circuitry and cortical networks involved in perceptual analysis and valuation, which is the finding this publication carries: the reward appears in a relationship between systems rather than at a site.
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Salimpoor, V. N., van den Bosch, I., Kovacevic, N., McIntosh, A. R., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. J. (2013). 'Interactions between the nucleus accumbens and auditory cortices predict music reward value.' Science, 340(6129), 216-219. Mesolimbic striatal activity, especially the nucleus accumbens, was the best predictor of what listeners would pay for previously unheard music in an auction; auditory, amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal activity did not predict reward value, which was instead predicted by increasing functional connectivity of those regions with the accumbens. doi:10.1126/science.1231059
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https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1231059
DOI: 10.1126/science.1231059