--- title: Cats Prefer Classical Music While Having Surgery description: Scientists have found out exactly what kind of music your cat should be chilling to while undergoing an operation canonical: https://time.com/3764866/cats-surgery-classical-music/ author: David Stout article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-31T09:28:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:18:12.508Z og:title: This Is What Cats Prefer to Listen to While Being Neutered og:description: Backed by science. og:url: https://time.com/3764866/cats-surgery-classical-music/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0b3845864ebc1b1e/698785f906f2c1d14d334adc/cat-music.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 156347182 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is What Cats Prefer to Listen to While Being Neutered twitter:description: Backed by science. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0b3845864ebc1b1e/698785f906f2c1d14d334adc/cat-music.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Science Has Found Out What Music Your Cat Should Be Chilling to While Being Neutered by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout Mar 31, 2015 9:28 AM UTC  White cat sitting next to piano keys White cat sitting next to piano keysGetty Images by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout Mar 31, 2015 9:28 AM UTC During surgical operations, cats aren’t huge fans of adult contemporary ballads or fist-pumping rocks anthems. In fact, research has found that felines much prefer the lush sound of classical music when going under the knife. [In an experiment](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150330122530.htm) detailed this week in the _Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery_, veterinary clinicians at the University of Lisbon studied how 12 female pet cats responded to different genres of music, while undergoing neutering. To gauge the animals’ responses, the clinicians recorded their respiratory rates and pupil diameters, which are an indication of their depth of anesthesia. During the experiment, the cats were fitted with headphones and then exposed to two minutes of silence — as a control — before listening to portions of Barber’s “Adagio for Strings (Opus 11),” Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” “The results showed that the cats were in a more relaxed state (as determined by their lower values for respiratory rate and pupil diameter) under the influence of classical music, with the pop music producing intermediate values,” reports Science Daily. And perhaps unsurprisingly, listening to AC/DC while being spayed induced “a more stressful situation.” \[[Science Daily](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150330122530.htm)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3764866/cats-surgery-classical-music/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3764866/cats-surgery-classical-music/"},"headline":"Science Has Found Out What Music Your Cat Should Be Chilling to While Being Neutered","datePublished":"2015-03-31T09:28:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:18:12.508Z","description":"Unsurprisingly, AC/DC is not it","url":"https://time.com/3764866/cats-surgery-classical-music/","keywords":["Newsfeed","medicine","animals","cats","Science topic","Research"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0b3845864ebc1b1e/698785f906f2c1d14d334adc/cat-music.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Stout","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/david-stout/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0b3845864ebc1b1e/698785f906f2c1d14d334adc/cat-music.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"156347182","caption":"156347182","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3764866/cats-surgery-classical-music/","name":"Science Has Found Out What Music Your Cat Should Be Chilling to While Being Neutered"}}]}] ```