https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619859339 Psychological Science 1–10 © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0956797619859339 www.psychologicalscience.org/PS ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article Music can evoke a wide variety of strong emotions, including pleasure and joy. This emotional response has been studied using specific pieces of music that generate “thrills” or “chills” (Goldstein, 1980). Neuro- imaging studies have revealed that the experience of these chills is associated with enhanced brain activity in reward-related areas (Blood & Zatorre, 2001), in addition to psychophysiological responses in the form of increased heart rate or skin conductance. Using a combination of positron emission tomography and functional MRI, Salimpoor, Benovoy, Larcher, Dagher, and Zatorre (2011) showed that participants’ striatal dopamine levels increased while they listened to pleasurable song excerpts that were familiar to them: Seconds before the most pleasurable moment, dopa- mine activity increased in the dorsal striatum (caudate), 859339PSS XX X 10.1177/0956797619859339Hernández et al.Music Reward, Striatum, and Pitch Discrimination research-article 2019 Corresponding Authors: César Ávila, Universitat Jaume I, Department of Basic Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, Avenida de Vicent Sos Baynat, E-12071, Castellón de la Plana, Spain E-mail: avila@psb.uji.es Maria-Antònia Parcet, Universitat Jaume I, Department of Basic Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, Avenida de Vicent Sos Baynat, E-12071, Castellón de la Plana, Spain E-mail: parcet@psb.uji.es Separate Contribution of Striatum Volume and Pitch Discrimination to Individual Differences in Music Reward Mireia Hernández 1,2 , María-Ángeles Palomar-García 3 , Benito Nohales-Nieto 3 , Gustau Olcina-Sempere 4 , Esteban Villar-Rodríguez 3 , Raúl Pastor 5 , César Ávila 3 , and Maria-Antònia Parcet 3 1 Section of Cognitive Processes, Department of Cognition, Development, and Educational Psychology, Institut de Neurociències, Universitat de Barcelona; 2 Cognition and Brain Plasticity Group, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain; 3 Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Group, Department of Basic Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I; 4 Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Group, Department of Education and Specific Didactics, Universitat Jaume I; and 5 Área de Psicobiología, Universitat Jaume I Abstract Individual differences in the level of pleasure induced by music have been associated with the response of the striatum and differences in functional connectivity between the striatum and the auditory cortex. In this study, we tested whether individual differences in music reward are related to the structure of the striatum and the ability to discriminate pitch. We acquired a 3-D magnetization-prepared rapid-acquisition gradient-echo image for 32 musicians and 26 nonmusicians who completed a music-reward questionnaire and a test of pitch discrimination. The analysis of both groups together showed that sensitivity to music reward correlated negatively with the volume of both the caudate and nucleus accumbens and correlated positively with pitch-discrimination abilities. Moreover, musicianship, pitch discrimination, and caudate volume significantly predicted individual differences in music reward. These results are consistent with the proposal that individual differences in music reward depend on the interplay between auditory abilities and the reward network. Keywords individual differences, music perception, music reward, voxel-based morphometry, striatum Received 5/18/18; Revision accepted 6/3/19