Scientists were amazed by the unexpected reaction of the body to musical compositions

An international team of scientists has discovered an amazing connection: music synchronizes even involuntary human movements. It turns out that not only does the foot start tapping to the rhythm of a favorite melody — even such an automatic process as blinking can adjust to the musical rhythm. This phenomenon occurs at an unconscious level and indicates a direct interaction between the auditory system and the motor areas of the brain that control eye movements.

As BAKU,WS reports, the research was published in the journal PLOS Biology.

Auditory-motor synchronization is considered a unique feature of humans, rarely found in other representatives of the animal world. Until now, scientists have focused on studying conscious movements — for example, when people step in time with music. A scientific team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong decided to find out whether this mechanism also affects involuntary reactions of the body.

During the experiments, participants were asked to listen to Bach's chorales while simply sitting in front of a blank screen. High-precision equipment registered blinks, while an electroencephalogram was recorded simultaneously. The analysis results were impressive: blinks coincided with musical beats, and synchronization was observed in all subjects — even those who didn't like the musical compositions. EEG confirmed that the brain predicted the moment of the next blink in advance and adjusted it according to the rhythm.

Additional MRI studies revealed the anatomical basis of the phenomenon: the accuracy of synchronization depended on the structure of the superior longitudinal fasciculus — nerve fibers connecting the auditory cortex with areas responsible for movement planning. In people with more developed neural connections, blinks more accurately matched the rhythm.

Interestingly, synchronization disappeared when attention switched to a visual task, which proves that this reaction is not a simple reflex. For the brain to establish a connection between rhythm and eye movements, it must focus on the perception of sound.

According to the study author Yi Du, blinks can become a new effective method for assessing rhythmic perception, since this is an involuntary reaction that is easy to record without using complex equipment. In the future, such an approach may contribute to the early diagnosis of rhythmic processing disorders, in particular, in dyslexia or Parkinson's disease.