Webinar: The Neuroscience of Musical Pleasure

01/09/2026 | Listen Now!

Dr. Robert Zatorre is a Professor at McGill University and a leading researcher in the neuroscience of music and auditory perception. His work focuses on how the human brain processes sound, music, and emotion, with particular emphasis on the neural mechanisms underlying musical pleasure and reward.

This webinar presents an overview of empirical evidence on how the brain’s reward system contributes to the experience of musical pleasure. Dr. Zatorre will begin by reviewing neural circuits involved in perceptual analysis, including the auditory cortex and its interactions with ventral and dorsal processing streams. He will then introduce reward circuitry and present evidence of its involvement in music, including the role of dopamine. The talk will conclude with a theoretical account linking perceptual and prediction mechanisms with the reward system as the neural basis for affective responses to music.