Bangin' beats make our brains synchronise

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-10-25 04:00

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Club_Tigerheat_on_the_Dance_Floor_with_Laser_Lights By Lanisha Cole - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

When we're exposed to musical beats, our brains synchronise, say Chinese scientists, who used brain scans to see what's going on in people's noggins when this happens. First, they scanned the brains of two people as they tapped their fingers, either along with musical beats or without any accompanying rhythm. They saw synchronisation between the participants' brains in the left-middle of the brain's frontal cortex, which controls voluntary movement, expressive language and higher level thinking, and that synchronisation was stronger when a beat was being played. A second experiment found that the louder the beats, the stronger the synchronisation between brains. The results may help explain why we can get a feeling of coordination and cooperation with others when we go to gigs or nightclubs.

Media release

From: Cell Press

Musical meter induces inter-brain synchronization during inter-personal coordination

Music moves us to coordinate with others. However, the brain mechanism underlying the effects of music on inter-personal coordination remains incompletely understood. Here, Hu et al. reveal enhanced inter-brain synchronization between two coordinated individuals in the presence of musical beat and meter.

Such inter-brain synchronization was higher in case of strong meters than weak ones. These results suggest that music enhances inter-brain synchronization to promote inter-personal coordination.

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Journal/
conference: eNeuro

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: East China Normal University, China

Funder: No information provided.

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