November 12, 2025 – A new study of mice and music by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) reveals how males and females are shaped differently by the same experiences—showing how early sound exposure shapes brain activity and emotional preferences later in life. 

The study, published in Cell Reports, found striking sex-based differences in how early sound exposure shapes later behavior. Male mice that were raised in silence or exposed only to artificial sounds strongly avoided music as adults. However, those that grew up hearing Beethoven displayed more diverse preferences, with many showing an active liking for music. Female mice, in contrast, appeared less influenced by their sonic environment, exhibiting a wide range of preferences regardless of exposure. Intriguingly, the researchers discovered that in females, stronger neutral activity in the auditory cortex correlated with a lower affinity for music, while in males, the link between brain response and behavior was weak or absent. 

In the study, Prof. Israel Nelken and student Kamini Sehrawat of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at the Hebrew University exposed baby mice to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (First Movement) to probe one of neuroscience’s most intriguing questions: how early experiences sculpt our sensory preferences, and whether those effects differ by sex. 

“These results suggest that early sound exposure affects males and females in fundamentally different ways,” says Sehrawat, who led the experiments. “What looks like the same experience at the surface may trigger completely different neural adaptations in each sex.” 

Prof. Nelken adds, “Our findings in mice intriguingly suggest that sound preferences rely on mechanisms that operate differently in males and females. Understanding those differences could shed light on how early sensory experiences shape emotional and cognitive development.” 

For Nelken’s team, Beethoven was simply a tool, a structured, multi-frequency soundscape engaging much of the mouse’s hearing range. But their results hit a note that resonates beyond the laboratory: the same melody may strike different chords depending on who’s listening. 

The research paper titled “Sound preferences in mice are sex-dependent” is now available in Cell Reports and can be accessed here.

Researchers:

Kamini Sehrawat1 and Israel Nelken1,2

Institutions:

  1. Edmond and Lily Safra Brain Science Center, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  2. Dept of Neurobiology, Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Science, Faculty of Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem