The research group led by Dr. Takahashi at the University of Tokyo, a member of our project, discovered that rats move their bodies to the beat of 120-140 BPM music, just like humans. They also reported that brain activity in the auditory cortex of rats is synchronized to the tempo of the music, and showed that this synchronization is based on adaptive properties of the brain using a mathematical model. This result suggests that beat-synchronized movements are not caused by physical characteristics but by brain dynamics. In the future, it is expected that the origin and development of music and dance rhythms will be clarified in relation to brain dynamics common to animal species. The results of this research have been published in Science Advances [1].

[1] Yoshiki Ito, Tomoyo Isoguchi Shiramatsu, Naoki Ishida, Karin Oshima, Kaho Magami, and Hirokazu Takahashi. 2022. “Spontaneous Beat Synchronization in Rats: Neural Dynamics and Motor Entrainment.” Science Advances 8 (45): eabo7019. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abo7019.

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