# @science on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DUgvsjwEwYC
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/55696677-science-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/00637eef80.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-02-08T21:15:17.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Science 🧬 (@science) — https://gondola.cc/science

## Caption

The researchers found that compared to low-empathy people, those with higher empathy process familiar music with greater involvement of the reward system of the brain, as well as in areas responsible for processing social information.⁠
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“High-empathy and low-empathy people share a lot in common when listening to music, including roughly equivalent involvement in the regions of the brain related to auditory, emotion, and sensory-motor processing,” said lead author Zachary Wallmark, an assistant professor in the SMU Meadows School of the Arts.⁠
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But there is at least one significant difference. Highly empathic people process familiar music with greater involvement of the brain’s social circuitry, such as the areas activated when feeling empathy for others. They also seem to experience a greater degree of pleasure in listening, as indicated by increased activation of the reward system.⁠
“This may indicate that music is being perceived weakly as a kind of social entity, as an imagined or virtual human presence,” Wallmark said. Researchers in 2014 reported that about 20 percent of the population is highly empathic. ⁠
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These are people who are especially sensitive and respond strongly to social and emotional stimuli. The SMU-UCLA study is the first to find evidence supporting a neural account of the music-empathy connection. Also, it is among the first to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore how empathy affects the way we perceive music.⁠
This 2018 study indicated that among higher-empathy people, at least, music is not solely a form of artistic expression.⁠
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For more info: link in our bio. 🔗⁠
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