I haven’t read this article, but a swing dancing friend of mine did and this is what she had to say about it:
The July 2008 issue of Scientific American contains
an article titled “The Neuroscience of Dance”. It describes the
authors’ efforts to map regions of the brain involved in dancing. I
didn’t see any startling or amusing revelations, but a couple of
findings that confirm what you know from common sense:
(1) “The ability or rehearse a movement in your mind is indeed vital
to learning motor skills” (i.e. actively watching the teacher and
imagining yourself doing the move is a good idea);
(2) “the more expert people become at some motor pattern, the better
they can imagine how that pattern feels and the more effortless it
probably becomes to carry out.” (i.e. the better you get, the easier
it is to learn new stuff.)
(3)When you tap your foot unconsciously to a rhythm, the signal from
your ears bypasses your cerebral cortex and goes directly to your
cerebellum and thence to your feet. (Gosh – doesn’t that sort of
define “unconscious?”)
(4)They theorize that dance “began as a form of representational
communication” because its brain activity patterns are closely
related to those of music and language.
BUT the MOST interesting info. came from a sidebars to the article.
In 2007, other researchers found that tango dancing improved mobility
in Parkinson’s patients. After 20 tango classes, subjects “froze”
less often, had better balance and were less at risk of falling. I
betcha these benefits apply to everyone who dances1 Also, when
knocked off balance, trained dancers right themselves far more
quickly than untrained subjects. “As the brain learns to dance, it
also apparently learns to update feedback from the body to the brain
more quickly.”
The Spiritual Life of a Medical Student 