The heartbeat of the members of a choir is coordinated as they sing together , speeding up or slowing down with the melody. As suggested in Frontiers of Neuroscience by the Swedish scientists who discovered this phenomenon, the cause is the vagus nerve , which is activated during exhalation and deactivated when inhaling air. "Singing regulates the activity of the vagus nerve, which is involved in our emotional life and in our communication with others," explains Björn Vickhoff, author of the work, echoed by the SINC agency. This nerve runs from the brain stem to the heart , and when singing a song it is rhythmically activated, especially in young people and individuals in good physical condition. "Our hypothesis is that the song regulates respiration, since it is exhaled during the phrases and inhaled between them", explains the researcher .
The study is part of the project "Partitura del cuerpo", which analyzes how music affects the human organism and health in purely biological terms, and whose objective is to discover possible applications of music in preventive medicine . In fact, researchers believe that music could help reduce pain, combat anxiety before surgery, or increase patients' motivation during rehabilitation.
