The Neuromantics – Episode 8

Pleasure seekers, you have arrived at your destination. In Episode 8 of The Neuromantics, your essential guide to neuroscience, art and literature, we look at the relationship between music and the body’s natural opioid system. What evidence does the pleasurable experience of listening to – and making – music provide for the existence of a neurochemical reward system, and why does that reward system respond so positively to it? What is the importance of habitual fulfilment (“the familiarity effect”) to learning? What is musical “taste”? Our psychological conductors are Adiel Mallik et al, and their paper, “Anhedonia to music and mu-opioids: Evidence from the administration of naltrexone” (2017) can be read, here: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep41952A different road to pleasure, or at least relief, is taken by the late great American poet Amy Clampitt in her 1985 poem, “Babel Aboard the Hellas International Express” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/25006756?seq=1), which describes a riotous train journey from Greece to Germany, where no one speaks the same language but everyone gets the message. And, finally, Guy de Maupassant: are money worries and mortal fears the same thing? And who knew “The Devil” (http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/TheDevil.html) was such a stickler for ritual? Last stop: polyamory in San Francisco. Which days of the week are best for Relationship Anarchy?