Music-to-My-Brain: Modulation of Reward System Activity via Musical Neurofeedback

Abstract

Music robustly engages the human reward system, yet whether this engagement can be harnessed for volitional self-neuromodulation remains unknown. We developed a musical neurofeedback approach that enables individuals to control a validated, fMRI-informed EEG marker of ventral striatal activity. Personalized pleasurable music served as feedback, becoming increasingly rewarding through acoustic manipulation as regulation improved, thereby creating a positive feedback loop. Across three double-blind, sham-controlled studies (N=80; two with repeated training), contingent neurofeedback enabled participants to upregulate this EEG signal reflecting ventral striatal activity; in studies with repeated training, this learning generalized to no-feedback contexts. In the neurofeedback (but not sham) group, regulation success correlated with self-reported hedonic capacity, indicating behavioral relevance. Pre-post fMRI further showed that improvements in ventral striatal BOLD self-regulation were associated with EEG-based regulation performance, supporting the EEG measure as a marker of ventral striatal modulation. Mechanistically, neurofeedback training enhanced functional connectivity between right auditory cortex and ventral striatum during listening to trained music, with stronger effects in the neurofeedback than in the sham group, demonstrating experience-dependent modification of auditory-reward pathways. Together, these findings reveal a mechanism for music-based reward self-regulation and offer a potential scalable, personalized approach for targeting reward dysfunction such as anhedonia.