Seeking Pleasure from Complex Music: Groove In Substance Use Disorders

Groove—the pleasurable urge to move to music—relies on dopaminergic reward–motor circuits. Given their dysregulation in substance use disorders, we compared 35 cocaine/cocaine–heroin users with controls. Drug users showed stronger groove responses to high musical complexity than controls, supporting the hypothesis that hypodopaminergic states raise the threshold for non-drug reward activation.