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Locomotor circuitries

How the brain plays musical statues

Nature Neuroscience volume 26, pages 1482–1484 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Activating a specific subpopulation of glutamatergic neurons in the brainstem issues a motor command for global motor arrest. This motor arrest is distinct from defensive freezing and has a striking pause-and-play pattern accompanied by a reduction in respiration and heart rate.

In the children’s game ‘musical statues’, players dancing to music must abruptly interrupt their dance moves and stay still for as long as the music is paused. If the person in charge of the music spots anyone moving after the music has stopped, that player is eliminated. When the music plays again, the remaining participants resume their dance from the point at which they paused it. The winner is the last player standing, presumably the person who has mastered the skills of interrupting ongoing movement with the fastest reaction time and holding the pose perfectly still for as long as it is required.

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Fig. 1: Activation of Chx10 neurons in the pedunculopontine nucleus causes global motor arrest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCL Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, London, UK

    Yaara Lefler & Tiago Branco

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  1. Yaara Lefler
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  2. Tiago Branco
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Correspondence to Tiago Branco.

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Lefler, Y., Branco, T. How the brain plays musical statues. Nat Neurosci 26, 1482–1484 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-023-01400-w

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