Do mice succumb to Mozart?

Studies from three laboratories have found this much: Mozart does something for them. The research found that a Mozart sonata improves maze performance in rats and mice. Some findings also pointed to accompanying biochemical changes.

The studies have given a confidence boost to longtime proponents of the so-called “Mozart effect,” who say the agreement of three “independent” studies starts to approach something that could be called rock-solid evidence. But with skeptics continuing to dispute the results, the only certainty is that the debate isn't over.

“Continuous exposure to music during the perinatal [before-and-after birth] period enhances learning performance in mice as adults,” concluded the authors of the second, Sachiko Chikahisa and colleagues at Tokushima University in Tokushima, Japan.

A major problem is that rats can’t even hear most of the notes in the Mozart music played in the studies, and mice may hear none of them. Both animals’ hearing range only covers much higher pitches than human hearing does. Mice and rats are also born deaf.

Tokushima University’s Hiroyoshi Sei, one of the co-authors, said in an interview that mice might feel vibrations of music without hearing notes.

He's not sure, he added, what about the music may have influenced the rodents. But “it definitely something affects something in their behavior,” he said.

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