So you think you can dance? You probably can, thanks to a brain that is remarkably adept at perceiving rhythms and synchronizing our body movements to what we hear. The ability to get into the groove—to step to the beat—is a hallmark of our species, raising the question of why we might have evolved this ability.
Neurobiologist Aniruddh Patel at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego looks for answers in brain scans and laboratory tests and also in the fancy footwork of what seems to be another dance-loving species, the sulfur-crested cockatoo. By monitoring the brain regions that activate when people hear a beat, Patel and colleague John Iversen find evidence that our hearing system is entwined with the motor control systems that guide our muscles. Patel proposes that these connections are a happy accident of evolution, a by-product of the brain development that allowed humans to learn to speak.
We take our ability to groove for granted, but it turns out that scientific studies show it's quite rare. How many other animals can rock out?
