Subtitles section Play video
-
Good music gets us grooving in no time. Our feet move with the beat,
-
our hands clap with the drums and our hips sway the rhythm.
-
We can't help it...but why? Why do we find ourselves busting a move when we hear music?
-
Let's start at the beginning: the brain and how it perceives sound.
-
When our ears perceive sound waves, they send this information to the auditory cortex in the brain.
-
The auditory cortex decodes the information in the sound: its volume, pitch, frequency, and so on.
-
For random and incoherent sound, what we call noise, the auditory cortex perceives it as such
-
and pays no heed to it unless it causes us pain. But ordered periodic sound, or music,
-
yields tickles the brain in interesting ways. You see, the auditory cortex is linked to many
-
different parts of the brain: cognition, emotion, language, and movement. When we listen to music,
-
all these regions light up; the motor regions allow us to bust a move and reward circuits
-
secrete neurotransmitters and hormones that make us feel good. There is also evidence that
-
dancing to music releases the body's natural pain killers making us more tolerant to pain.
-
The additional fact music makes us reflexively dance is curiouser still.
-
So, what's so special about dance and music? This points to a long evolutionary link of life
-
with music, though why such a link developed in the first place is unclear. Some hypothesize that
-
music began as small rhythmic beats, like tapping one's foot, maybe to scare away predators. We soon
-
learnt to coordinate with others to create more complex rhythms.
-
Synchronising with other people allowed us to create social bonds. Several archaeological
-
sites have found musical instruments that date back as far as 42,000 years ago. For all this,
-
it would be beneficial to have neural connections that help us sync with our group mates.
-
This might help explain why we break out into our very own air guitar solos while listening to rock.
-
Our brains probably think we're all part of the same orchestra.
-
This coordination, at some point, resulted in dance.
-
When we look deeper into the brain, on a cellular level, a special type of neuron
-
might be the reason we can move to the rhythm so well. These neurons are called mirror neurons,
-
and as the name suggests they mirror observation into actions. What this means is that
-
these neurons are activated when we see someone else perform actions as well as when we perform
-
that same action. In short, they help us copy. They've been implicated in our ability to dance.
-
Many species of birds also dance to music. Research on Snowball, the cockatoo showed
-
that the bird has choreography, 14 distinct moves to be precise. This indicates that other animals
-
might also have neural connections that allow them to appreciate music.
-
Besides social grouping, dancing might also have started a mating strategy. From birds to
-
insects, animals dance to impress their mates. Scientists think it is a representation of the
-
animal's fitness, or how good their DNA is. This propensity to dance and make music
-
in groups has led scientists to propose that this might be one reason humans manage to
-
form and remain in large groups or societies. Almost every society has a dance unique to its
-
culture and we've found evidence that we've been dancing since we could first paint on walls.
-
All things considered, dance is a pretty wonderful thing, and though we might not fully understand
-
what's going on in the brain and body, it doesn't really matter as long as we can get groovy.
