When we enter the dance floor, our body tries to synchronize to the rhythm of the music and our brain orchestrates all these movements , ordering our joints when and how to move. We are dancing.
The mechanisms of the brain
There are different neural mechanisms related to dance: when we move, we use neurons and chemicals in the body to control the muscles that affect joints, movement and balance. The nervous system activates groups of muscles that work together to achieve a wide range of motion and thus demonstrate our many or little talents as dancers.
Voluntary movements, such as dances with a marked choreography such as a bachata or tango, originate in the motor cortex, which is involved in the planning, control and execution of this movement. Signals from the motor cortex travel through 20 million nerve fibers in the spinal cord so that, for example, the wrist or toe responds in a certain way. Interestingly, the smaller the movement, the more dedication it receives from the motor cortex, what we call the somatosensory cortex, a middle region of the brain responsible for motor control, which also plays a key role in hand-eye coordination.
On the other hand, the basal ganglia , another group of brain cells, also communicate with other regions of the brain to smoothly coordinate movement. Thus, all this complex gear in the brain finally translates the neural signals in the dance list, making our movements real.
But how does dancing affect our thinking organ?
According to Daniel Glaser, neuroscientist and director of the Science Gallery at King’s College London (UK), dancing improves brain function on a wide variety of levels. On the one hand, our muscle memory allows us to learn how to perform a dance without having to think about the steps. This happens because the movements fit deeply into the brain, creating a kind of shorthand between what we think and what we do. That is, we memorize how to do things so efficiently that they do not require a conscious effort on our part. Repeating the dance steps constantly brings us to such a point that we can carry them out automatically.
In addition, although muscle memory is unable to distinguish when we are wrong for doing a step and when not, some studies have suggested that l endorphins as they are released after making a right move at the ball, make the brain store as proper form such a movement ; a process that continually reconfigures the brain’s neural pathways.
Muscle memory cells can be activated by any activity . Scientific evidence suggests that the changes that, therefore, can occur in our gray matter, can lead, in turn, to modifications in our capacities. Dancing integrates various brain functions involved in kinesthesia, by following the rhythm and experiencing positive emotion while dancing; all of them increase the connectivity of our brain.
According to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine , dancing can also prevent neurodegenerative diseases and increase mental alertness at all ages. Dancing or similar activities can drastically reduce the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. And it is that dancing forces the brain to regularly reposition its nerve pathways, especially in the regions that involve executive function, long-term memory and spatial recognition.
