1. What Are Musical Chills, and How Do They Change Your Body?
Just before the chorus of a favorite song, your heart might race, and your back or arms might tingle. This sensation is called chills or frisson in English. It is not just your imagination. Researchers report that during chills, there are clear changes in the autonomic nervous system, such as heart rate and electrical changes in the skin. They use these changes as markers to examine the peak of musical pleasure [2].
The percentage of people who experience this varies by study, ranging from about 55% to 86%. However, these figures come from introductory articles. You can understand it as: many people feel it, but not everyone does. So, what is happening inside the brain at that moment?
2. How Did the 2001 Study Look Inside the Brain During Chills?
The first serious investigation of the brain during chills was a study by Blood and Zatorre in 2001. They asked 10 musicians who felt chills from songs they chose themselves to listen to those songs. They examined brain blood flow using a method called Positron Emission Tomography (PET) [3].
The stronger the chills, the more blood flow increased or decreased in areas related to reward, motivation, emotion, and arousal. Specifically, this included the ventral striatum, midbrain, amygdala, and orbitofrontal cortex [3].
The reward-related areas are thought to work when you eat delicious food. The interesting finding was that music seems to activate these areas too. However, the participants were only 10 musicians, so this does not represent the general population. The next question is: does the brain do nothing before the chills arrive?
3. Why Does Dopamine Rise About 15 Seconds Before the Chills Peak?
A 2011 study by Salimpoor and colleagues directly showed that dopamine is released in the striatum of the brain during chills, using PET. Dopamine is a substance related to motivation and the feeling of "wanting" [2].
Using another method called fMRI on the same people, they examined the flow of time. If the period up to 15 seconds before the reported moment of chills is called "anticipation," the caudate nucleus was more active during anticipation. During the chills themselves, the nucleus accumbens was more active [2].
This is similar to the two-stage process of feeling excited before a concert and then enjoying the performance once it starts. However, 15 seconds is a research boundary. It does not mean the brain always starts moving exactly 15 seconds before. The participants were 10 people aged 19 to 24 who felt chills most reliably. They listened to songs they chose and pressed a button to signal the moment. Is dopamine truly the cause of chills?
4. How Did Changing Dopamine with Drugs Affect Enjoyment of Music?
A 2019 study by Ferreri and colleagues tested if dopamine causes musical pleasure. They gave 27 healthy people a drug that becomes dopamine material (levodopa), a drug that weakens dopamine’s effect (risperidone), or a placebo on different days, spaced more than a week apart [4].
After taking the drugs, they listened to music and rated their pleasure. With levodopa, pleasure increased. The amount they were willing to pay to listen again also increased. With risperidone, both decreased [4].
Since changing dopamine changed musical enjoyment, this supports the idea that dopamine is involved in musical pleasure. Some explanations suggest chills became less likely, but this is not treated as a research result here. This was a controlled drug experiment by researchers. It is not a story for children to imitate with medicine. So, where in a song do chills happen most easily?
5. Which Moments in a Song Trigger Chills Most Easily?
In what parts of a song do chills happen most easily? A 2007 study by Grewe and colleagues reported that moments when new voices or instruments enter, or where sounds become loud and sharp, are common in songs that cause chills. This information is available in introductions to later studies [5].
You might imagine a sudden overlap of many voices in a quiet section. However, sound features alone do not decide it. In a Pink Floyd song, chills often happened during a crescendo (gradually getting louder). In other songs, they were scattered throughout or happened in places without obvious features [5].
Why do new voices or growing sounds act as triggers? There is a theory that a mismatch with prediction (surprise) is involved, but this is still at the hypothesis stage. If so, why do some people get chills from the same song while others do not?
6. Are Brain Connections Linked to How Easily People Feel Chills?
A 2016 study by Sachs and colleagues surveyed 237 people. They selected 10 people with very high scores for aesthetic experiences with music and 10 with very low scores, then compared their brains. The high-scoring group was more likely to feel chills from music [6].
The results showed that the connection between the superior temporal gyrus (which handles hearing) and the insula and medial prefrontal cortex (related to emotion and sociality) was larger in the group that felt chills easily. This means the connection between the area that receives sound and the area related to emotion tends to be larger [6].
However, the authors themselves stated that the sample of 20 people is small, the results are preliminary, and interpretation should be cautious. Also, the size of the connection only showed a relationship; it does not prove the wiring is the cause. Whether sensitivity is innate or due to experience was not verified in this material. Not feeling chills easily is not a matter of better or worse, but just a difference.
7. How Can You Find the Moment Before Chills in Your Favorite Song?
Choose one favorite song and listen to it in a quiet place. Prepare paper, a pencil, and a clock or timer. Note the time from the start of the song when your chest tightened or you felt a shiver. It is okay if you do not feel chills; you can note a place you thought "I like this."
Listen again and use your ears to find what changed just before the noted place. Did voices or instruments increase? Did the sound get louder? Or did it suddenly become quiet? None of these may fit, and you might not find a feature. In actual studies, triggers differed by song.