Infants Hear Music Early, Move to It Later: New Study Maps Neural and Motor Development in the First Year

EEG and video were recorded from 79 infants (26 at 3 months, 26 at 6 months, 27 at 12 months) while they heard structured songs and shuffled versions. All ages showed stronger neural responses to structured music; only 12-month-olds moved more, mainly upper-body rocking, swaying, and proto-clapping. No infant displayed beat-synchronized movement.

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Prior work showed infants’ early auditory sensitivity but lacked simultaneous motor data. Funded by an ERC Starting Grant (MUSICOM), the project was led by Trinh Nguyen (Italian Institute of Technology) and Giacomo Novembre, to map musical perception and spontaneous movement in the first year.

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The cohort included infants and 26 adult controls. EEG extracted event-related potentials and auditory steady-state responses, both heightened for structured versus shuffled music. Video tracking (DeepLabCut) identified ten principal movements; only 12-month-olds increased movement, especially front-back rocking, side sway, arm pedalling, and proto-clapping. High-pitch boosted brain responses only at six months, yet predicted movement at all ages.

Babies’ brains respond to music by three months of age – while moving to it begins by their first birthday

The early neural sensitivity shows an innate capacity to parse musical structure, while later spontaneous movement suggests gradual motor maturation. Clarifying this timeline informs theories of language development, caregiver-infant bonding, and rhythmic entrainment.

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The authors view the findings as evidence that auditory encoding of music precedes coordinated motor output, linking the rise in upper-body motions at 12 months to brain maturation. They stress the results describe natural developmental trajectories, not prescriptive guidance for caregivers, and note constraints such as the cross-sectional design, seated posture, and limited stimulus set.

Babies’ brains respond to music by three months of age – while moving to it begins by their first birthday

Neural responses to structured music were robust at three, six, and twelve months, yet movement differences emerged only at twelve months, highlighting a perception-action gap. No infant showed beat-aligned movement, suggesting rhythmic entrainment develops after the first year. The shuffling altered both timing and pitch, preventing isolation of specific acoustic drivers.

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• “The brain is ready for music remarkably early, and even 3-month-olds show stronger responses to real music than to scrambled music, so the encoding of musical structure is already in place in the first months of life,” — Trinh Nguyen, Researcher

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• “Only by 12 months did babies reliably move more to music than to scrambled music, with rocking, swaying, and clapping-like movements,” — Trinh Nguyen, Researcher

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• “We found no evidence that infants, at any age, including 12 months, moved in time with the beat,” — Trinh Nguyen, Researcher

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• “This is basic science about when these abilities emerge in development, not a recipe for boosting it,” — Trinh Nguyen, Researcher

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Work will follow infants longitudinally, test varied musical excerpts, separate rhythm from pitch, and observe responses at home to pinpoint when beat-aligned movement emerges.

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