When we listen to music, we involuntarily blink in time with it, Chinese neuroscientists are convinced.

The neural mechanism that allows us to “move to music” is called auditory-motor synchronization. It’s what makes us tap our feet to the radio, bob our heads at a concert, or make a running playlist with a specific beat to keep up the pace.

But new research has shown that it’s not just gestures that we can consciously control. One of the most involuntary movements of the body is also subject to rhythm.

In a series of experiments, the results of which are presented in PLOS Biology than 100 people took part. They measured the frequency of spontaneous blinks – those that occur on their own, usually even outside our attention.

The subjects were played Western classical music with a clear, even tempo. And it turned out that not only did the blinks begin to coincide with the musical rhythm – the brain waves also lined up in time.

To the rhythm of the music

To make sure that the participants were not responding to recognizable melodic lines, the scientists played the music in the opposite direction – and the blinks still resonated. Then the same participants were played simply a rhythm at the tempo of the music. In this case, the synchronization was slightly worse than with full music, but the difference was not statistically significant.

The only factor that disrupted this synchronization was a side task. While the music was playing, participants had to watch the screen and wait for a red dot to appear.

The researchers initially assumed that if the dot appeared “in the lobe”, participants would notice it faster. But no matter how well the appearance of the dot coincided with the rhythm, the blinks stopped adjusting to the music. This result surprised scientists and showed: for such a reaction to occur, you need to be at least minimally focused on the music – without attention it disappears.

Electroencephalography showed the dependence of the synchronization of blinks on the neural activity of the brain. over, scientists have traced that it originates in the left posterior segment of the superior longitudinal fasciculus, a large white matter tract that connects the auditory and parietal regions.

It is important that the study participants were not musicians. That is, rhythmic blinking is not the result of musical training or developed hearing.

Why is this necessary?

Such phenomena help to better understand how different brain systems interact: how sensory signals and motor reactions are connected. There is evidence that some neurological disorders that affect movement can be treated with music therapy that engages auditory-motor synchronization. The we learn about such neural pathways, the effective such methods can become.

“We found that people’s spontaneous blinks match the rhythm of music – even when they are not told to follow it. This suggests a hidden connection between music perception and eye movements. Because blinks are measured effortlessly, this behavior provides a simple, implicit way to understand how we perceive rhythm—and could one day be the basis for clinical screening for rhythm-related disorders, explained lead author Yi Du of the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “What struck us most was how reliably such a small movement as blinking can be adjusted to the beat.” It’s a tiny action, but it reveals a deep coherence between hearing and movement that we were completely unaware of.”

According to the researcher, the discovery of such an accessible “window into rhythmic processing” paves the way for studying the timing of the brain outside the laboratory.

“This experiment reminds us that small, usually unnoticed behaviors can reveal fundamental principles of how the brain works,” she concluded.