A new study by Japanese scientists has revealed that rats move to the beat of songs by Lady Gaga.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo played Mozart, Queen and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” to rats wearing miniature sensors to detect even the tiniest movements, according to a report by AFP.
The study discovered that “rodents had an innate ability to synchronise their moves to the beat, previously believed to be a skill unique to people.”
“Rats’ brains are designed to respond well to music,” despite their bodies moving only a little, associate professor Hirokazu Takahashi, who is part of the team who conducted the study told AFP on Tuesday.
“We all believe that music has magical powers, but we don’t know anything about its mechanisms,” he said, adding that his team “wanted to find out what kind of sound connections appeal to the brain, without the influence of emotion or memory.”
In rats, the ‘bopping’ effect was most pronounced for music in the range of 120-140 beats per minute (BPM) the same as humans, leading the scientists to hypothesise that it could be a reaction that is consistent across different species.
“Music moves the body. It goes beyond the auditory system and affects the motor system… the power of sound is that great,” Takahashi said, added the research mainly focused on Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K.448, played at four different tempos.
The scientists played the tracks of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way and Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust, tracks picked by Takahashi’s students.
This was also the first time the rats in the study had listened to music, AFP reported, adding that the study was published last week in the peer-reviewed Science Advances journal.
The effect of music on rats may have been overlooked until now because previous research was mainly carried out using video footage, not movement sensors, making the animals’ tiny movements more difficult to detect, Takahashi told AFP, adding that he wants to go beyond rhythm and explore the effects of melody and harmony on the brain in the future.
“If music has an emotional effect, it would be really interesting if we could get to the point where we could see it in animals,” he said.
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