A recent study shows that musical rhythm and language skills are connected not just by behavior, but by shared brain structures and genetics. This gives new clues about how music and language may have evolved together in humans.
The study looked at whether there’s a biological connection between people’s abilities in language and musical rhythm. Scientists already noticed that these traits often go hand-in-hand, so they wanted to see if there’s a shared genetic basis behind that.
They found that some of the same genes are linked to both rhythm skills and dyslexia (a reading disorder), as well as other language-related traits. Using data from large genetic studies (with over a million people combined), they identified 16 specific regions in the DNA that seem to affect both rhythm and dyslexia.
These shared genes are active in brain cells during both fetal development and adulthood, suggesting a complex relationship between how the brain is built and these traits. One particular brain pathway involved in connecting hearing and movement areas (called the left superior longitudinal fasciculus-I) also showed a genetic link to both rhythm and language abilities.
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