Four in the afternoon in a random cafe a few days ago. Various profiles of lonely freelancers and remote workers try to concentrate on their tasks in front of their laptop screens. They fight against their instinct to give up at this nap time. Meanwhile, those who are still on vacation enjoy their iced coffees and their long after-dinner conversation. The heat presses outside with its last blows, despite the fact that "back to school" is already in the air.
Suddenly, the distinctive, galloping chords of Stevie Wonder's Superstition begin to invade the room. Completely involuntarily, everyone present begins to beat the rhythm with their feet or with the pen they hold in their hand. Their heads mark the beat and some –less self-conscious– even sway rhythmically in their chairs.
They can't control it; there are songs and rhythms that inevitably invite us to move. Humans (except in certain clinical conditions) have that instinct that makes us start dancing to certain music, even if it is fighting with the modesty that this very fact generates in us.
But why? What happens in our brain in those moments? “Instinctive” is probably the best term that comes to mind to define the experience. And it seems that our system is perfectly geared to allow and promote this unstoppable movement. The fact that babies are already able to synchronize their movements to an external rhythm at three months of age seems to indicate how innate this ability is.
Indeed, both when we see other people dance and when we are exposed to certain types of music, a response is triggered in our brain that encourages us to get moving. Researchers at the Center for Music in the Brain (Aarhus University, Denmark) have recently proposed an interesting theoretical framework for it. Specifically, they suggest that we first process sound information and pay attention to its different characteristics (basically activating the auditory cortex). Here, rhythm and pulse perception are key pieces in relation to the dance.
Certain musical styles and certain songs have sound characteristics that trigger a pleasant response (through the activation of the reward system, such as the orbitofrontal and cingulate cortices) that pushes us to dance. Specifically, it makes us activate movement preparation regions, such as the premotor cortex and the supplementary motor area. This sensation is what is known as groove.
If upon feeling this groove we decide to let ourselves go, we will activate the entire motor control system, including those regions that have automated or learned movements or choreographies in the past, such as the cerebellum or the basal ganglia, a set of nuclei in the internal base of the brain with a multitude of functions crucial for learning or emotional processing. Scientists also conclude that this entire chain system is fed back by the dance itself, which causes us to continue feeling pleasure from dancing and want to continue doing it.
But, as with music, there is a second question that researchers in fields such as neuroscience, psychology or anthropology ask themselves. Why have we maintained a behavior that, at first glance, does not seem to have any evolutionary advantage? How is it that we have refined this brain system for an activity that might seem merely recreational?
It has been said that art, in its different forms of expression – including dance – provides individuals with tools to improve their success, find a sexual partner, increase their emotional experience or increase social cohesion and communication.
In fact, some authors supported the theory that dance would have evolved together with music as a form of proto-language, and that its evolutionary meaning lay in its communicative functions.
However, recent studies and reviews go further and have concluded that dance and rhythmic perception may have evolved separately from music and language. This theory is based, among other notions, on the multiple biological, social and psychological functions on which dance provides important benefits for humans.
Specifically, there is evidence that dancing fulfills important cognitive and behavioral functions and that it would help us in the following ways:
It is important to highlight, in any case, that this is a field still little explored from a scientific and systematic point of view. Future studies will help us continue understanding the functions and effects of dance on our brain and its evolutionary meaning.
To conclude, dance has accompanied human societies for at least 1.8 million years, although it is difficult to date its origin exactly due to its immaterial nature.
Currently, social conventions make us be a little modest or think that it is an art limited to professionals or a modern courtship tool. However, scientific evidence suggests that it is an innate or natural behavior that can help us communicate with our peers, regulate our mood, improve our physical condition or express our sexuality.
So now we can feel accompanied by all these reflections and knowledge the next time Don't stop 'til you get enough by Michael Jackson comes on and our feet take off on their own to the dance floor.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Its author is Lucía Vaquero Zamora, Postdoctoral researcher in Cognitive Neuroscience, Complutense University of Madrid.
