As a musician and drummer for many years... I am putting myself in the "natural rhythm" camp - I never struggled with keeping time, it came easily and I didn't have to work too hard. Now, actually learning to play a drum set, actually getting the limb separation down, took years and years of practice before I could feel really comfortable.

As far as the rest of the rhythm section -- it's the same for any member of the band. You either have it, or you don't. I played with several bass players who didn't have it, and I felt like as the drummer I was working twice as hard as playing with a bass player that did "have it". I knew a bass player who practiced for hours with a metronome, and he could never play an upbeat in the right place. That's something that comes at an intuitive level.

In my years of jazz band on set, along with different rock groups....I love bassist <3. A good bassist allowed me to go crazy, and if I got off, I knew where to listen to be on...nobody else would even notice.

That said, I think it would be pretty similar, the study should have said "anyone who thinks...in time".

I share that curiosity. A band works best when the drummer and the bassist are "locked in". I have to imagine that if a neuroscientist were to image the brains of both the drummer and the bassist in a band with a really good rhythm section, their brains would "look" very similar.