Neural categorisation of rhythm in human newborns
- 1Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), University of Louvain (UCLouvain), 1200 Brussels, Belgium
Abstract
Music is ubiquitous across cultures, and humans engage in social interactions through music from early in life. A cornerstone of these interactions is rhythm categorisation, allowing the sheer diversity of rhythmic inputs to be mapped onto internal rhythm categories. The pervasiveness of certain rhythm categories across cultures suggests that rhythm categorisation may be partially rooted in neurobiological predispositions constraining the internal representations of rhythm. However, this view appears to conflict with the diversity of music practices across cultures, which points to a role of experience in rhythm categorisation. To assess the relative contributions of neurobiological predispositions and experience, we tested 0- to 3-day-old newborns, capitalising on their minimal postnatal experience with music. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we recorded, in newborns and adults, brain responses to drum sounds whose pattern of relative interval duration ranged from isochronous to long-short rhythms (1:1 - 2:1 interval ratio). Results indicate significant categorisation in newborns's neural responses, with a representational structure that correlate with those of adults, yet with a greater degree of differentiation across rhythms. These findings reveal neurobiological predispositions enabling rhythm categorisation to be present at birth and further shaped across the lifespan, highlighting the evolutionary roots and plasticity supporting this human cultural practice.
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BibTeX
@misc{barbero2026neural,
title = {{Neural categorisation of rhythm in human newborns}},
author = {F. M. Barbero and T. Lenc and A. Gallard and N. Jacoby and R. Polak and M. Varlet and A. Foulon and S. Moghimi and S. Nozaradan},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.16.759621},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.16.759621v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Neural categorisation of rhythm in human newborns
AU - F. M. Barbero
AU - T. Lenc
AU - A. Gallard
AU - N. Jacoby
AU - R. Polak
AU - M. Varlet
AU - A. Foulon
AU - S. Moghimi
AU - S. Nozaradan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.16.759621
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.16.759621v1
AB - Music is ubiquitous across cultures, and humans engage in social interactions through music from early in life. A cornerstone of these interactions is rhythm categorisation, allowing the sheer diversity of rhythmic inputs to be mapped onto internal rhythm categories. The pervasiveness of certain rhythm categories across cultures suggests that rhythm categorisation may be partially rooted in neurobiological predispositions constraining the internal representations of rhythm. However, this view appears to conflict with the diversity of music practices across cultures, which points to a role of experience in rhythm categorisation. To assess the relative contributions of neurobiological predispositions and experience, we tested 0- to 3-day-old newborns, capitalising on their minimal postnatal experience with music. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we recorded, in newborns and adults, brain responses to drum sounds whose pattern of relative interval duration ranged from isochronous to long-short rhythms (1:1 - 2:1 interval ratio). Results indicate significant categorisation in newborns's neural responses, with a representational structure that correlate with those of adults, yet with a greater degree of differentiation across rhythms. These findings reveal neurobiological predispositions enabling rhythm categorisation to be present at birth and further shaped across the lifespan, highlighting the evolutionary roots and plasticity supporting this human cultural practice.
ER -