Persistent Identifier
|
doi:10.57979/P4SAYV |
Publication Date
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2025-07-28 |
Title
| Neural correlates of emotional responses to self-selected music: Evidence from multivariate pattern analysis |
Author
| Alexandre Sayal | CIBIT, University of Coimbra, Portugal | ORCID | 0000-0002-0476-9533
Teresa Sousa | CIBIT, University of Coimbra, Portugal | ORCID | 0000-0003-2652-3152
César F. Lima | ISCTE, Lisbon, Portugal | ORCID | 0000-0003-3058-7204
Miguel Castelo-Branco | CIBIT, University of Coimbra, Portugal | ORCID | 0000-0003-4364-6373
Inês Bernardino | CIBIT, University of Coimbra, Portugal | ORCID | 0000-0003-3123-008X
Bruno Direito | CISUC, University of Coimbra, Portugal | ORCID | 0000-0002-3259-8815 |
Point of Contact
|
Use email button above to contact.
Sayal, Alexandre | (CIBIT, University of Coimbra, Portugal) |
Description
| Music is a uniquely powerful stimulus for evoking complex and deeply felt emotions. While previous research has identified neural correlates of music-evoked emotional responses, less is known about how these felt emotions are represented in the brain, particularly when elicited by familiar, personally meaningful music. Here, we used a personalized fMRI paradigm in which participants (N = 20) each selected musical excerpts corresponding to the nine emotion categories defined by the Geneva Emotional Music Scale. These self-selected excerpts were presented during functional MRI scanning. We first examined the neural correlates of music-evoked emotion by comparing brain activity during music listening to that during exposure to white noise. The maps were consistent with previous research, highlighting clusters in sensory and limbic regions. We then used multivoxel pattern analysis to decode emotion categories from whole-brain activation patterns. The results revealed that music-evoked emotions could be reliably discriminated based on distributed neural activity, with consistent involvement of the superior temporal gyrus, supplementary motor area, amygdala, and cerebellum, among other auditory, motor, and interoceptive regions. These findings provide new insight into the neural encoding of musical emotions and highlight the value of personalized, music-based paradigms for research in auditory and affective neuroscience. |
Subject
| Medical and Health Sciences - Basic Medicine - Neurosciences; Medical and Health Sciences - Clinical Medicine - Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging; Humanities - Arts - Performing Arts Studies (Musicology, Theater Science, Dramaturgy) |
Language
| English |
Funding Information
| Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) | EXPL/PSI-GER/0948/2021 |
Depositor
| Sayal, Alexandre |
Deposit Date
| 2025-07-15 |
Related Material
| https://github.com/CIBIT-UC/brainplayback_task02 |