Long before they can walk, talk or utter their first ‘mama’, babies are already tuning into the beat.
Scientists have discovered that infants as young as three months old can process music in their brains.
However, it takes several more months before their bodies are able to keep time with the rhythm.
Researchers followed 48 healthy infants at three, six and 12 months of age, recording their brain activity while they listened to music and filming how they moved in response.
The babies heard a range of musical rhythms while wearing a cap fitted with electrodes to measure electrical activity in the brain.
At the same time, cameras tracked their body movements to see whether they spontaneously bounced, swayed or kicked along to the beat.
Analysis, published in the journal eLife, revealed that even at just three months old babies’ brains could detect rhythmic patterns in music.
By contrast, coordinated, dance-like movements did not begin to emerge until they were around 12 months old.
Researchers followed 48 healthy infants at three, six and 12 months of age, recording their brain activity while they listened to music and filming how they moved in response
At the age of one their ‘dance moves’ included front-back rocking, side swaying, clapping, up-down rocking and arm pedalling
The researchers found that by the age of one, infants were significantly more likely to move rhythmically in time with the music.
This suggests their brains and bodies become increasingly linked over the first year of life.
At this age their ‘dance moves’ included front-back rocking, side swaying, clapping, up-down rocking and arm pedalling.
‘Across the first year of life, infants seem to consistently move their lower body while slowly increasing their capacity for more complex upper-body and whole-body movements while seated,’ lead author Dr Trinh Nguyen, from the Italian Institute of Technology, said.
‘We believe this increasing complexity is linked to the gradual maturation of the dorsal auditory stream in the brain, a pathway that has previously been suggested to play a crucial role in rhythmic entrainment and beat perception.’
The findings suggest babies are born with an early ability to respond to music, but their bodies need more time to catch up.
‘Future research is now needed to extend our characterisation of music-driven movement beyond the first year of life and explore what continues to be its mysterious functional significance,’ Dr Nguyen concluded.
A previous study found that newborns can predict musical patterns from just two days old and come into the world ‘already tuned in’ to music.
Chané Milner-Joseph, 27, from London, who is a single stay-at-home mum, left social media users in hysterics after sharing a video clip of her 11-month-old daughter Chyla Rae dancing along to her bedtime lullaby
For the study, a team from the Italian Institute of Technology played J.S. Bach’s piano compositions for an audience of 49 sleeping newborns.
This included 10 original melodies and four shuffled songs with scrambled melodies and pitches.
While the babies listened, the researchers used electroencephalography – electrodes placed on their heads – to measure their brainwaves.
When the babies showed signs of surprise, it meant they expected the song to go one way, but it went another.
Analysis revealed the newborns tended to show signs of surprise when the rhythm unexpectedly changed – indicating the ‘miniature maestros’ had generated musical expectations based on rhythm, the researchers said.
