Juno is a weather dog with the uncanny and unsettling ability (at least for her) to detect thunderstorms long before they arrive, even from 12 miles or more away. While I know that Juno is talented and gifted, there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that birds and other creatures sense storms and disasters before they strike. Could this extrasensory perception have a physiologic underpinning? A new study makes a good case.
Human hearing spans a range of 20 to 20,000 Hz – the number of vibrations or cycles of a sound per second. As with all physiologic variables, there are variations at the extremes. In humans, much of that variability is at the upper end, especially pronounced with aging. The variation at the lower end, infrasound, is reported to be smaller, but may represent a “loss in translation” – when these lower frequencies are interpreted as vibrations rather than sounds. Furthermore, our developed environment in the first world is filled with low-frequency sounds, from traffic to heating and cooling systems, masking their presence and making us less consciously aware of them. Low-frequency sounds are also a feature of our natural environment, present in storms, tectonic movement deep in the earth, and even volcanic activity.
Could sounds at the very edges of perception, such as infrasound below 20 Hz, shape our mood and physiology even when we don’t realize they’re there? Is that the key to Juno’s superpower?
Testing the Unheard
The test subjects were psychology’s modern-day experimental subjects, thirty-six undergraduates who listened individually either to calming instrumental music or to a “horror-themed ambient track.” Some also had infrasound at 18 Hz pumped into the room at normal conversational levels. After listening to a 5-minute clip, they completed questionnaires designed to capture
- Their overall emotional response, i.e., positive or negative, as well as whether they felt irritated, engaged, or distressed.
- Their perception of the music as interesting, sad, calming, or unsettling. They were also asked whether those experimental infrasounds were present.
Salivary cortisol levels, a reliable marker of our stress response, were measured before each listening episode and twenty minutes after hearing the music track.
What Participants Felt—and Didn’t Hear
Participants were generally unable to tell whether infrasound was present, performing no better than chance when asked to detect it. This rules out the idea that their reactions were driven by expectation or conscious awareness.
Regardless of whether the music was calming or unsettling, the presence of infrasound led participants to report less engagement, greater sadness, and increased irritation. Rather than causing dramatic emotional shifts, infrasound appeared to act as a subtle background influence, nudging perception toward discomfort, annoyance, and disengagement.
These subjective changes were mirrored in the body. Participants exposed to infrasound showed increases in cortisol levels, even after accounting for their self-reported mood. This suggests that the physiological response was not a reflection of what people thought they felt, but part of a deeper, possibly automatic reaction.
Taken together, it seems infrasound nudges perception and physiology toward mild aversion, a persistent sense that something is “off.” How does a signal we can’t hear still register so clearly?
A Possible Biological Pathway
One plausible evolutionary explanation lies in our vestibular system, a series of mineral structures, the otoliths, that are sensitive to low-frequency motion – a vestigial remnant of our fish ancestors [1]. While our hearing is now primarily a function of the cochlea, the vestibular system may still register infrasound. If so, that signal needs a pathway to how we feel.
The vestibular system is wired into the brain’s center for emotion and stress, the limbic system, providing a pathway from the sounds we experience (rather than merely hear) into the circuits that regulate our mood and arousal. This aligns closely with what participants reported: not fear or panic, but a low-grade, hard-to-localize negativity.
The activation of cortisol after a few minutes of exposure is consistent with its normal role in preparing for “fight or flight.” However, it remains unclear whether a barely perceptible environmental factor that nudges a stress response within minutes can have more chronic impacts, especially in our day-to-day urban and suburban environment.
Beyond Humans
We are not alone in responding to low-frequency sound.
A natural experiment among our mammalian cousins, the right whale, occurred after 9/11, when ship traffic and its attendant low-frequency noise in the Bay of Fundy were greatly reduced. There was a corresponding decrease in the whales' stress hormones, strongly suggesting that chronic exposure to low-frequency noise can act as a physiological stressor.
Zebrafish were one of the impetuses for the study, as the research group had already shown that they exhibit avoidance behavior when exposed to 15 Hz infrasound. Zebrafish otoliths are a theoretical anchor and potential evidence that may explain the mechanism underlying our adverse response to these low-frequency sounds.
Then there is Juno. Dogs’ hearing range does not extend as low as humans’, but shared infrasound may still be sensed through vibrations in their paws or whiskers. This could contribute to the unease we interpret as anxiety.
The study does not prove that infrasound is the hidden villain behind every shiver, anxious dog, or haunted-house feeling. But it does show that the body may be listening even when the mind is not. Low-frequency sound, barely perceptible or entirely unnoticed, can tilt our emotions, elevate our stress hormones, and leave us with a primitive sense that something is wrong.
That may be Juno’s gift. Neither prophecy nor ESP, but biology tuned more finely than ours—or perhaps less muffled by the noise of modern life. Storms, ships, traffic, HVAC systems, and the deep rumblings of the natural world may all be speaking in frequencies we no longer consciously hear, a vibration at the edge of awareness. Yet some part of us still responds.
[1] Your Inner Fish
Source: Infrasound exposure is linked to aversive responding, negative appraisal, and elevated salivary cortisol in humans Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1729876
Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA
Director of Medicine
Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS is Director of Medicine at the American Council on Science and Health. He has over 25 years of experience as a vascular surgeon.
