Do you feel the beat, baby? Musical rhythm enhances sensorimotor neural activities in infants

Rhythm perception, tracking temporal regularity at different hierarchical levels in sequential sounds, is fundamental to processing music and speech. However, it remains unclear the neural development of this ability and whether its individual differences in infancy are associated with later speech and language skills. The sensorimotor network is proposed to be engaged for processing rhythm, where the motor system actively shapes auditory rhythm perception through temporal prediction and action simulation, based on adult studies. Using magnetoencephalogram, we examined how sensorimotor system is engaged in rhythm perception in 7- and 11-month-old infants. Whole-brain analysis revealed increased neural responses in distributed sensorimotor brain networks at both ages. Functional connectivities between sensorimotor and related areas were enhanced within the motor-related alpha and beta frequency bands as early as 7 months of age. In addition, the strength of these connectivities at 7 months are positively related to their productive vocabulary size at 27 months. Our findings extend theories of rhythm perception from adulthood to infancy, suggesting that infants already recruit distributed motor-related brain regions for rhythm perception before they perform precise synchronization. These early neural responses underlying rhythm perception may serve as potential predictors for later language development.