Science, Space and Technology News 2023
Cats were once believed to produce purrs through cyclic contractions of vocal fold muscles, but a recent study suggests no such contractions are needed. Anatomical studies found a unique pad in cat vocal folds enabling them to produce low frequencies, prompting questions about our current understanding of cat purring.Cats are vocal creatures: they meow, screech, and purr. From a voice production point of view, the meows and the screeches are not special.
In contrast, cat purrs were long believed to be exceptional. Research dating back half a century suggests that the purrs are produced by a special mechanism – through cyclical contraction and relaxation of the muscles in the vocal folds within the larynx, requiring constant neural input and control from the brain.
“Anatomical investigations revealed a unique ‘pad’ within the cats’ vocal folds that may explain how such a small animal, weighing only a few kilograms, can regularly produce sounds at those incredibly low frequencies – far below even than lowest bass sounds produced by human voices,” says Herbst. The study’s findings – while not constituting an outright falsification of the previous theory – are a clear indicator that the current understanding of cat purring is incomplete, and warrants further research.
Reference: “Domestic cat larynges can produce purring frequencies without neural input” by Christian T. Herbst, Tamara Prigge, Maxime Garcia, Vit Hampala, Riccardo Hofer, Gerald E. Weissengruber, Jan G. Svec and W. Tecumseh Fitch, 3 October 2023,SciTechDaily: Home of the best science and technology news since 1998. Keep up with the latest scitech news via email or social media.
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