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Humans aren’t the only animals that move to music. Parrots have been known to do it. And now rats have been observed bopping their heads in time with the tunes of Mozart, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson and others, according to a new study from the University of Tokyo. What’s more, the rats seems to respond to the same beats that get humans’ feet tapping (轻跺).

The researchers played a sonata by Mozart for lab rats at different variations (变更) of the original speed: 75%, 100%, 200% and 400%. Wireless sensors on the rats’ bodies tracked their movements. Meanwhile, 20 human participants were involved and listened to the same music through motion sensor-equipped headphones.

It was observed that the rats’ head movements were the most obvious when the music played at its normal speed, which was around 132 bpm (beats per minute). The same was true for human participants. The researchers then changed to some pop songs such as Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”. As with Mozart’s, rats moved their heads along the rhythm of pop songs, similar to how people do, at about 120 to 140 bpm.

The study showed that both rats and humans moved their heads along to the beat in a similar rhythm. The level of head bopping from both humans and rats decreased as the music sped up. The study suggests that there is something similar about the way human and rat brains respond to rhythm, but rats do not match their motions to the beat like humans do. Humans can predict the timing of a beat and move predictably to it.

Aniruddh Patel, a psychologist who studies brain response to music, says humans and parrots respond to beats with big, voluntary movements such as head shaking, dancing or foot tapping. Patel also stresses that this study does not show that rats have the same emotional associations with music as humans do. Yet he believes it could help reveal how humans and some other animals evolved a sense of rhythm.