Does Music Make Even Rats Dance? Nodding Heads to the Beat

Japanese Tokyo University Research Finds Rats Can 'Synchronize' by Nodding Heads to Rhythm
"Moving in Response to Music Is an Instinct, Not Training"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] An unusual research finding has emerged showing that mice instinctively move their heads to music.

According to recent foreign media reports, Professor Hirokazu Takahashi and his research team at the University of Tokyo in Japan published these findings in the scientific journal Science Advances. The researchers attached wireless miniature accelerometers to 10 mice to measure subtle head movements. Then, they played Mozart's "Sonata for Two Pianos in D major" for one minute. The music was played at four different tempos: 75%, 100%, 200%, and 400% of the original speed. To compare mice and humans, 20 volunteers also participated in the experiment. Both the mice and humans listened to the Mozart piece as well as Lady Gaga's "Born This Way," Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," Michael Jackson's "Beat It," and Maroon 5's "Sugar," each at the four different tempos.

Before starting the experiment, the researchers believed that the ability to move the body to the beat was unique to humans, but the results were different. Both mice and humans showed optimal beat "synchronization" by nodding their heads in time when the music was within the 120?140 bpm range. The original tempo of the Mozart sonata used in the experiment was 132 bpm. The researchers also found that mice and humans nodded their heads to the beat with similar rhythms, and that the degree of head movement decreased as the music tempo increased. Regarding this, Professor Takahashi said, "In this experiment, mice exhibited innate beat synchronization without any training or prior exposure to music."

The British Guardian noted, "Videos of animals dancing to music often appear on social networking services (SNS) like TikTok," and evaluated this study as "the first scientific investigation into this phenomenon."

Another interesting finding from this study is that the brain's "time constant" is similar across species. The time constant refers to the time taken from stimulus to response. The researchers thought that since mice have faster bodily functions such as heart rate, they might prefer faster music than humans. The researchers stated, "These results provide insights into animal cognition and the origins of music and dance," and added, "We plan to investigate how other musical features such as melody and harmony relate to brain dynamics in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.