Why Some People Feel Nothing From Music: Scientists Uncover Rare Brain Disconnect

A rare disconnect between auditory and reward circuits explains why some people feel no pleasure from music.

Ten years ago, scientists identified a small group of individuals who feel no pleasure from music even though their hearing is normal and they enjoy other types of experiences. This condition, called “specific musical anhedonia,” occurs when the brain’s auditory regions fail to properly communicate with the areas involved in reward. In a paper recently published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, the researchers who first described the condition outline the brain processes involved and explain how this work may help uncover broader differences in how people experience pleasure and joy.

“A similar mechanism could underlie individual differences in responses to other rewarding stimuli,” says author and neuroscientist Josep Marco-Pallarés of the University of Barcelona. “Investigating these circuits could pave the way for new research on individual differences and reward-related disorders such as anhedonia, addiction, or eating disorders.”

To identify musical anhedonia, the team created the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ), which evaluates how strongly a person responds to music. It focuses on five sources of musical reward: emotional impact, mood regulation, social interaction, movement or dance, and the enjoyment of seeking or collecting new music. Individuals with musical anhedonia tend to show low scores across all five areas measured by the BMRQ.

Brain Circuits Behind the Condition

Behavioral research and brain imaging have both reinforced the conclusion that specific musical anhedonia results from disrupted communication between certain brain regions. Individuals with this condition are fully able to hear and interpret musical melodies, showing that their auditory circuits remain intact—they simply do not experience enjoyment from what they hear.

fMRI results reveal a similar pattern: when exposed to music, people with musical anhedonia display lower activity in the reward circuit—the part of the brain involved in processing rewards such as food, sex, and art. However, this same circuit responds normally to other forms of reward, including experiences like winning money, which confirms that the reward system itself is functioning normally.

“This lack of pleasure for music is explained by disconnectivity between the reward circuit and the auditory network—not by the functioning of their reward circuit, per se,” says Marco-Pallarés.

“If the reward circuit is not working well, you get less pleasure from all kinds of rewards,” says author and neuroscientist Ernest Mas-Herrero of the University of Barcelona. “Here, what we point out is that it might be not only the engagement of this circuitry that is important but also how it interacts with other brain regions that are relevant for the processing of each reward type.”

Origins and Broader Implications

Why people develop the condition is still unclear, but studies have shown that genetics and environment could both play a role. A recently published study in twins shows that genetic effects could be responsible for up to 54% of how much an individual enjoys music.

Even among healthy people, there is a lot of variation in how responsive people are to rewards, but research into specific reward types is relatively rare given that most research into the reward circuit has assumed that reward responsiveness is an all-or-nothing phenomenon—which is not the case.

“We propose that using our methodology to study other reward types could yield the discovery of other specific anhedonias,” says Marco-Pallarés. “It’s possible, for instance, that people with specific food anhedonia may have some deficit in the connectivity between brain regions involved in food processing and the reward circuitry.”

The team is currently collaborating with geneticists to identify specific genes that might be involved in specific musical anhedonia. They also plan to investigate whether the condition is a stable trait or something that changes throughout life—and whether musical anhedonia or other similar conditions can be reversed.

Reference: “Understanding individual differences to specific rewards through music” by Ernest Mas-Herrero, Robert J. Zatorre and Josep Marco-Pallarés, 7 August 2025, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2025.06.015

This research was supported by funding from the European Regional Development Fund, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, the Government of Catalonia, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Fondation pour l’Audition, Paris.

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