Unpacking a revolutionary new discovery with a UCL neuroscientist. Could our brain’s reaction to music someday be able to predict the most chill-inducing playlists?
By Verde Marchi
In-ear brain recordings may help predict moments of ‘musical chills’—a step towards mind-powered playlists, new study suggests.
What a blissful experience it is when a song hits just right, shivers shower your spine and goosebumps glaze your arms; wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to exclusively hear music your brain finds so pleasurable? What if your next headphones could read your mind to create a tailored, chill-inducing playlist? That possibility may be closer than expected (Netiwit Kaongoen et al., 2023).
A new study, published in iScience in January 2026, uses brain-wave readers to detect musical pleasure patterns and may help build playlists precisely tailored to the individual listener (Kondoh et al., 2026).
Dr Shinya Fujii, Dr Sotaro Kondoh and their research team, from Keio University in Japan, introduce the ‘Chill Brain-Music Interface (C-BMI)’, a novel system that uses small in-ear brain sensors, also known as electroencephalograms (EEGs), to monitor neural responses to everyday music listening.
These compact, in-ear EEGs recorded 24 participants’ electrical brain activity as they listened to songs they selected—ones they knew gave them ‘chills’—and less interesting songs, chosen by others. A system was then trained based on this neural data and acoustic features of the songs to anticipate which series of notes were more likely to spark that same ‘pleasure response’.
The result: the experimental C-BMI, with a training accuracy of 83.6%, designed to investigate whether brain signals can shape music selection in real time.
“It’s a really interesting study” that “taps into a relatively new area” says Dr Leun Otten, cognitive neuroscience and EEG expert at University College London. “It's really beneficial to look at the brain activity” to “improve people's appreciation of music,” she adds.
Still, translating brainwaves into good playlists is not straightforward. While the concept is promising, Otten urges caution. The study relies on self-reported ‘musical chills’ instead of measured physical responses such as goosebumps or heart rate. “They don’t actually measure chills from a physiological point of view,” she notes. The study assumes participants know themselves well enough to determine their corporeal responses and “that is really biasing,” she adds.
Otten also questions whether in-ear EEGs and sophisticated mathematical modelling truly outperform manually choosing the songs one prefers. “I probably would make my own playlist with my own favourite choices” she comments.
Despite the study’s limitations, Otten encourages enthusiasm, “people shouldn't be too cautious and should be quite excited about the idea”.
Beyond music, the C-BMI could be one of many brain-computer interfaces with the ability to respond to our internal states in real time. These systems could one day not only fit in your headphones to personalise playlists, but also shape other forms of media or digital interactions.
Otten is fascinated by the study’s wider principle. “Brain activity gives you something unique, that is specific to you, that you cannot easily capture… it is really about how your brain interprets it, and the EEG can measure that,” she says.
While practical applications may still be distant, this study is a valuable addition to growing literature exploring how our brain states might actively shape our experiences.
In conversation with Dr Leun Otten.
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