So you’ve got ants in your pants when the bass drops in your favorite song, and you have to bust a move, but why?! Well, it seems that scientists have managed to answer that very question and how it relates to music therapy. It turns out that you really do need to move that money maker, because of the bass and all of its special voodoo effects on your brain.
According to the Western Sydney University's MARCS Institute in Australia, when music has a low frequency, your brain actually responds. Depending on the rhythmic patterns of the song you're listening to, the electrical activity in your brain will synchronize with the frequency of the music. However, during the study, bass-driven music had a higher success rate at synchronization and was more likely to support the subject into perceiving the music into movement. So basically… when you bump the bass, expect to shake a tail feather, because one certainly affects the other.
What’s really cool, though, is that this study may be able to help treat certain conditions! People with brain damage and neural cognitive issues often use music as a treatment to help rehabilitate their conditions, and this knowledge of synchronizations may help them further this healing process. So what’s up next for scientists? Well, they want to figure out what part of the brain and which neurons are synchronizing when the low-frequency music is being played. In the meantime, you can blame the boogie on the bass.