For some people, listening to music can release as much dopamine into the brain as cocaine.

A new study shows that a favorite piece of music can make your brain release dopamine, just like having sex, using drugs, or eating good food. Researchers at Canada’s McGill University say their findings, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, will help us understand both our minds and our evolution better. Here’s a look at what sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll have in common:

What exactly did the McGill team study?

Valorie Salimpoor and her team had eight participants from a pool of 217 volunteers listen to a piece of instrumental music that consistently gave them ‘chills,’ and scanned their brains over the course of three listening sessions. They also measured the ‘chills’ themselves, through changes in the subjects’ temperature, skin conductance, heart rate, and breathing. The other 209 contenders were eliminated because they didn’t reliably get goosebumps, or because they brought music with lyrics, which the McGill team avoided to keep the study focused on music.

So what did the participants want to hear?

The most popular piece was Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings,’ both the orchestral version and a techno dance remix. Other hits included Claude […]