A research group at the University of Tokyo has discovered that rats, like humans, move their bodies to the beat of music.
We, humans, naturally move our bodies to the music and exhibit "beat-synchronized" movement to catch the beat.However, there are many animal species that do not exhibit beat-synchronized movements, and the evolution of beat-synchronization is shrouded in mystery.
This time, the research group discovered that rats, a type of rodent, also exhibit beat synchrony.Since beat-synchronized movements in humans are most pronounced at tempos of 120-140 BPM, when rats' head movements to 132-BPM music were examined, clear beat-synchronization was observed.On the other hand, when the tempo was increased, the beat-synchronized movements of both humans and rats decreased, and changes in the beat-synchronized movements during music were similar between humans and rats. It was suggested that
During music presentation, the brain activity that processes sound information also showed marked beat synchrony in the auditory cortex of rats.Activity in the auditory cortex produced the clearest synchrony around 120 BPM.Using a mathematical model, we found that the reason for this is related to the "adaptation characteristics" in which the brain's reaction to the next sound is strongly suppressed for about 250 ms (milliseconds) after sound stimulation.
Furthermore, it was found that the brain's adaptation characteristics work well for sound sequences with an average interval of 200 ms, and interestingly, many of the rhythms of classical music match this.This suggests that the adaptive characteristics inferred from brain activity in rats may be related not only to beat synchrony but also to listening to and composing music.
This research finds the possibility that beat synchrony arises from common brain dynamics that transcends species of humans and rats, and is the first step to clarify the evolution of beat synchrony.It is thought that music, which has developed over many years in human society, may exert an appealing power to the brain beyond animal species. Be expected.
Paper information:[Science Advances] Spontaneous beat synchronization in rats: Neural dynamics and motor entrainment
