Rats have rhythms in their blood

Intelligent, you know, but rats also have refined taste. Researchers in Tokyo have understood that Mozart has a certain effect on rodents, especially the Sonata in D major for two pianos Kv 448.

While some animals can be trained to respond to sounds or even generate an apparent rhythmic sound such as an alarm call, this is not the same as having an innate genetic ability to recognize the rhythm of a song. This ability is known as rhythm synchronicity.

People who were equipped with headphones also participated as guinea pigs in the research that led to this discovery accelerometers applied above while the rats placed small accelerometers directly on the head. The accelerometers (sensors used to measure acceleration by calculating the detected force relative to the object’s mass) were used to test the guinea pigs’ ability to bang their heads, which can be translated as ” swing your head”. Both humans and rats then listened to 60 seconds of Mozart at four different speeds: 75 percent, 100 percent, 200 percent, and 400 percent of the original speed.

Rhythm perception and synchronization within 120-140 beats per minute (BPM) are common in humans and commonly used in music composition. The reasons why beat synchronization is not common in some species and the mechanism that determines the optimal tempo are unclear.

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Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major is usually heard op 132 beats per minutetime interval in which the rats demonstrate that they have the rhythm in their blood, their run head bob perfectly timed. The team also found that both the people involved in the experiment and the rats swung their heads in a similar rhythm, and that the level of “swaying” decreased as the speed of the sonata increased.

A second phase of the study was used to analyze rats’ reactions when listening to songs by pop artists, such as i Queen And Lady Gaga (“Another one bites the dust” and “Born this way” respectively). The researchers examined the rats’ physical movements and neural activity to determine their sensitivity to rhythm/beats. Careful analysis of head movements and neural recordings again revealed that the rats showed significant synchronization and activity in the auditory cortex within 120-140 BPM (beats per minute).

“Rats demonstrate a innate synchronization — that is, without any training or previous exposure to music — with the beats at 120-140 bpm, where even humans show clear synchronization to the beat,” Associate Professor Hirokazu Takahashi of the Graduate School of Sciences explained in a statement. . and technology.

Having conducted the study in humans and 10 rats, the team said that given the surprising results, they plan to develop this study further and investigate how it compares to those conducted in other animal species. All this will serve to learn more about the origins of music and dance. The video of pop party you can find it here