Most of us love to have a little boogie, and some – but not all – can keep the beat, too!
It turns out we’re not alone, as a new study has found that rats can nod their heads to the beat of music.
Researchers from the University of Tokyo played the rodent clips of Lady Gaga, Queen and Michael Jackson and a Mozart sonata in four different tempos.
Each shake was recorded with both the camera and a miniature sensor strapped to the head.
“Rats showed innate—that is, without training or prior exposure to music—beat synchronization most prominently within 120–140 beats per minute (bpm),” Associate Professor Hirokazu Takahashi said.
It has also been found that people in this range exhibit the clearest beat synchronization – our ability to naturally recognize and respond to the beat of music.
The study found that both the rats and humans swept their heads along in a similar rhythm to the beat. Beat synchronization was most pronounced in both species in the 120-140 bpm range
Researchers from the University of Tokyo played the rodent clips of Lady Gaga (left), Queen (right) and Michael Jackson, as well as a Mozart sonata in four different tempi
Using a computer model, the researchers found that this optimal pace was defined by the brain’s time constant — the speed at which it can respond to a stimulus.
dr Takahashi said, “This shows that the animal brain can be useful in elucidating the perceptual mechanisms of music.”
It used to be thought that the ability to move to a beat was unique to humans, however numerous studies have proven that this is not the case.
The first non-human animal to demonstrate this was a cockatoo named Snowball, who went viral in a 2009 video waving his head at the Backstreet Boys.
He was studied by scientists at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego along with his owner Irina Schulz.
They said its “remarkably diverse range of spontaneous movements” show that dancing is not limited to humans but is a response to music when certain conditions are present in the brain.
WHAT DID THE STUDY FIND?
Rats and humans were played music at different tempos while their “bobbing” head movements were recorded.
The results showed that both humans and rodents respond best to a beat that is between 120 and 140 bpm.
A computer model also found that the region of our brain that processes sound is also best tuned to this area.
This suggests that the ability to keep a beat is related to the brain’s time constant – the speed at which it can respond to a stimulus – which is similar across species.
The aim of the new study, published today in Science Advances, was to find out if rats share this ability.
dr Takahashi said, “Music exerts a powerful attraction on the brain and has profound effects on emotions and cognition.
“To use music effectively, we need to uncover the neural mechanism underlying this empirical fact.”
The researchers attached tiny, wireless accelerometers to the heads of 10 lab rats, which could detect even the slightest movement.
The rats were then played one-minute clips of Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, KV 448, at four different tempi.
These were the original tempo of 132 BPM and 75 percent, 200 percent, and 400 percent of it.
They were also played pop songs; Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”, Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”, Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and Maroon 5’s “Sugar”.
The clips were also played to twenty human participants through headphones fitted with an accelerometer to measure head movements.
After analyzing the accelerometer data, it was found that both the rats and humans jerked their heads along in a similar rhythm to the beat.
As the music sped up, making it more difficult to move in time with the beat, head jerk intensity decreased in both humans and rodents.
In addition, beat synchronization was most evident in both rats and humans in the 120-140 bpm range.
The authors wrote, “Beat perception and synchronization within 120 to 140 bpm is common in humans and is commonly used in music composition.”
This finding suggests that even more species could be associating sound with movement, as humans can, than previously thought.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of innate clock synchronization in animals that was not achieved through training or musical exposure,” said Dr. Takahashi.
The researchers attached tiny, wireless accelerometers to the heads of 10 lab rats, which could detect even the slightest movement
The rats were then played one-minute clips of Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, KV 448, at four different tempi
The clips were also played to twenty human participants through headphones fitted with an accelerometer to measure head movements
The researchers also wanted to investigate whether this ability is related to the brain’s time constant, which is known to be similar across species.
To do this, they fitted the data from the experimental study to a mathematical model of “neural adaptation” – how brain activity reacts to external stimuli.
The auditory cortex, the region of the brain that processes sound, was also found to be best tuned to the 120 to 140 bpm range.
“Our results suggest that the optimal tempo for beat synchronization depends on the time constant in the brain,” Takahashi said.
Further research by the team will examine how other musical properties, such as melody and harmony, are related to the brain.
Chimpanzee “conga” sheds light on how early humans learned to respond to rhythm and move synchronously
It can be hard to resist the temptation to join a conga line when one comes along, and it turns out chimpanzees have the same urges.
Psychologists from the University of Warwick studied a conga-like dance performed by a pair of chimpanzees at Saint Louis Zoological Park in Missouri, USA.
The double act initiated her dance, seemingly for no other reason than the expression of emotion.
Researchers say the level of motor coordination, synchrony and rhythm between the two chimps matched the levels exhibited by orchestra players performing the same piece of music.
They concluded that chimpanzee conga is the “first case of spontaneous whole-body entrainment between two age-matched monkeys.”
This is evidence that human dance may have been ingrained in mechanisms of social cohesion between small groups and may have had stress-relieving benefits.
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