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Everybody would have experienced becoming nostalgic while listening to a favourite song, it is for the first time that neuroscientists have found that music and songs triggers different functions of the brain, thus taking you down on a rollercoaster of memories.

In the study led by Robin Wilkins at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner to sketch the activity of the brain of 21 young volunteers as they listened to different genre of music that included rap, rock and classical.

The volunteers were made to listen to six songs for five minutes in which four of them were "iconic" in each of the genre. One song that was unfamiliar and another song that they considered to be their 'favourite' were also played for them.

The fMRI scanner showed patterns of activity happening in the brain and that helped scientists understand whether a volunteer liked or disliked the song they were listening to. The scientists also noticed a "telltale signature" that happened when the volunteers listened to their favourite song or music.

Listening to music that they 'liked' opened up a neural circuit in both brain hemispheres. Known as the default mode network, this is very critical for "internally-focused" thoughts, said the scientists in the journal.

Moreover, when the favourite songs of the volunteers were played, it was found that the music boosted activity in the adjoining hippocampus, the region that handles socially linked emotions and memory. "These findings may explain why comparable emotional and mental states can be experienced by people listening to music that differs as widely as Beethoven and Eminem", said the scientists in the journal.

Jean-Julien Aucouturier, an investigator at France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), thinks that listening to one's favourite song or music can probably help in treating memory loss and dementia. "This research shows that it is not a stronger activity in given parts of the brain that is stimulated, but a greater 'connectedness' between various parts", told Aucouturier to AFP.
However, he also warned that more research needs to be conducted to ascertain whether reviving connections to damaged memory areas will be longer than the length of the song.