News Neuroscience

Rats can bop their heads to the beat

This research may help shed light on how brains evolved to perceive rhythm

A white rat inside a clear case with a one red dot on its tail and three colored dots in a straight line on its head

That rat’s got rhythm. Colored dots help cameras mark a rat’s movements in response to hearing music by Mozart being played.

Y. Ito et al/Sci. Adv. 2022

By Deborah Balthazar

Humans aren’t the only animals known to move to a musical beat.

For instance, parrots do it, too. And now rats have been observed bopping their heads in time with the music of Mozart, Lady Gaga, Queen and others, researchers report on November 11 in Science Advances.