New research at the University College London shows that regions in the orbital-frontal cortex of the brain 'light up' when participants viewed pieces of artwork or listened to music that they had previously rated as beautiful. According to a recent article found at the website
ScienceDaily, researchers "...found that an area at the front of the brain known as the medial orbito-frontal cortex, part of the pleasure and reward centre of the brain, was more active in subjects when they listened to a piece of music or viewed a picture which they had previously rated as beautiful. By contrast, no particular region of the brain correlated generally with artwork previously rated ugly..." This suggests that, while beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, everyone uses the same brain structures for coming to those determinations.
