Source: Neuroscience News

Music doesn’t just move us—it may also reshape the emotions we associate with past experiences, according to a new neuroscience study.

Researchers have found that playing emotional music during memory recollection can subtly alter the content of that memory, effectively updating its emotional tone.

These changes aren’t just fleeting impressions; they can persist for days and are reflected in the brain’s emotional and memory networks.

Building on the well-established theory that memories can be updated each time they are retrieved, scientists designed a three-day experiment to explore how music might influence this process.

Participants first encoded emotionally neutral stories. Later, they were asked to recall those stories while listening to either emotionally positive or negative music. Finally, they were tested again a day later, without music, to see how their memories had changed.

The results were striking. Participants who recalled stories while listening to emotional music were significantly more likely to infuse their recollections with new emotional content that matched the tone of the music—happy music led to more positive reinterpretations, while sad music prompted more negative ones.

When tested a day later, these emotional distortions had persisted, showing that music had effectively rewritten the emotional tone of the memory.

Brain imaging during recollection showed activity in emotion- and memory-related regions, including the amygdala, anterior hippocampus, and inferior parietal lobule.

Notably, emotional music increased connectivity between the amygdala and both the frontal cortex and visual processing areas, suggesting that the brain was integrating emotional tone with visual imagery and narrative structure during recollection.

These findings shed new light on the powerful influence of music on the mind. While music’s ability to evoke emotional responses is well known, this study shows it can actively change what we remember and how we feel about it.

That has potential implications for everything from therapeutic memory reconsolidation to understanding the emotional coloring of autobiographical memories.

Whether you’re reminiscing to a nostalgic playlist or reliving heartbreak through song, your soundtrack may be shaping your memories more than you think.

Keywords; music, emotional memory