Advertisement
Bored? Your brain is disconnecting
10 December 2008
Magazine issue 2686. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
For similar stories, visit the The Human Brain Topic Guide
PAY attention please, using as much of your brain as possible. When your mind wanders during a boring task, it may be because parts of your brain simply disconnect.
Knowing that activity in different brain regions changes when attention lapses, Daniel Weissman of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, wondered if there were also changes in the crosstalk between regions.
Weissman asked volunteers to spend a tedious hour in a functional-MRI brain scanner, identifying letters that flashed on a screen. At times, their reactions slowed, showing that attention was wavering. During these lapses, communication between regions related to self-control, vision and language processing died down. "Attention failed to grease the connections in the brain," says Weissman. This is equivalent to these regions disconnecting, he says. Weissman presented the results at a recent neuroscience meeting.
Attention is like a communication amplifier that only focuses on the connections between certain regions at certain times, says Weissman. When the amplifier switches to a new set of connections, existing ones weaken. Communication between those regions slows and attention lapses.
The researchers also noticed one particular region "lit up" during lapses, and used this to predict when the mind would switch its focus. "We're using brain signals to predict behaviour in the future," says Weissman.
10 December 2008
Magazine issue 2686. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
For similar stories, visit the The Human Brain Topic Guide
PAY attention please, using as much of your brain as possible. When your mind wanders during a boring task, it may be because parts of your brain simply disconnect.
Knowing that activity in different brain regions changes when attention lapses, Daniel Weissman of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, wondered if there were also changes in the crosstalk between regions.
Weissman asked volunteers to spend a tedious hour in a functional-MRI brain scanner, identifying letters that flashed on a screen. At times, their reactions slowed, showing that attention was wavering. During these lapses, communication between regions related to self-control, vision and language processing died down. "Attention failed to grease the connections in the brain," says Weissman. This is equivalent to these regions disconnecting, he says. Weissman presented the results at a recent neuroscience meeting.
Attention is like a communication amplifier that only focuses on the connections between certain regions at certain times, says Weissman. When the amplifier switches to a new set of connections, existing ones weaken. Communication between those regions slows and attention lapses.
The researchers also noticed one particular region "lit up" during lapses, and used this to predict when the mind would switch its focus. "We're using brain signals to predict behaviour in the future," says Weissman.
posted by:
|
New York City
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: Bored? Your brain is disconnecting
Tue, December 16, 2008 - 9:30 PMIs disconnecting the right word here? (None of his paper titles actually use the word connection or disconnection, but they do use activity or activation.) Its always connected, it is just that activity wanes. And that is exactly what you would expect to see. -
-
Re: Bored? Your brain is disconnecting
Wed, December 17, 2008 - 8:51 AMhaha! well that's science reporting for ya. Even though New Scientist is one of the better ones they still do strange things like this occasionally.
I took it to mean the "mind" is disconnecting metaphorically. The way they phrase it though makes it sound really painful...
-
-
Re: Bored? Your brain is disconnecting
Wed, December 17, 2008 - 6:00 PMPopular neuroscience writing is some of the worst among popular scientific literature. This stems partly from the complexity of the subject and partly from the fact that most people in the 21st century still walk around believing the bronze age idea that we have a soul, or a unified mind (the soul's secular sister). Most people haven't yet learned to think about the mental in terms of brain processes, which is more difficult and often less useful for everyday purposes.
It seems that this article is saying that when you lose focus on what you're doing, the parts of the brain that were being used to focus shut off. Put that way, this study looks fit for publishing in the Journal of Incredibly Obvious Results.
