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Thursday April 25, 2024

Rats groove on the beats of popstars, researchers found

Rats and humans have one thing in common: cannot resist bopping their heads on good beats

By Web Desk
November 16, 2022
Rats groove on the beats of popstars, researchers found
Rats groove on the beats of popstars, researchers found

Rats enjoy just like humans on music. According to Guardian, researchers at Tokyo University found that rodents bobbed their heads like humans when they listened to music.

Associate Professor Hirokazu Takahashi studied music's effects on brain activity and why it evokes emotion.

With the help of his research team, they fitted ten rats and 20 humans with accelerometers to monitor head movement while listening to songs, including Lady Gaga's Born This Way, Michael Jackson's Beat It, and Maroon 5's Sugar. Queen's Another One Bites the Dust.

"Our results suggest that the optimal tempo for beat synchronization depends on the time constant in the brain," Takahashi said. "This demonstrates that the animal brain can be useful in elucidating the perceptual mechanisms of music."

The study is reportedly the first to give evidence that rats, like humans, have an innate sense of rhythm.

More importantly, the rats were not trained or had prior exposure to music, as per the report findings.