Learn more about health with this collection
How to find purpose and meaning in life
How to cultivate gratitude
Techniques for managing negative thoughts
Attentional Searchlight
- While the prefrontal cortex region of the brain had long been studied by neuroscientists, a separate region of the brain, called thalamus came in the picture in 1984, by a new theory that suggested that the region acts as a gatekeeper of the senses, apart from being a relay centre.
- The region has a thin layer of inhibitory neurons wrapped around it, called the thalamic reticular nucleus(TRN), which acted as ‘gates’ and hid or removed some of the data that is not required at a given time, to establish a level of focus for the individual.
- The study found that the brain was lowering the unwanted signals to help us focus on the stimuli of interest.
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MORE IDEAS ON THIS
Removal Of Signals: The Blinking Brain
The brain’s ability to focus on one thing while obscuring, curbing or reducing the signal strength of other (presumably unwanted) stimuli can be dangerous if those turn out to be unexpectedly important.
The brain, evolved as it is, has a unique way to handle this issue, by reducing the si...
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The Brain’s Unique Signal-filtering Process
Even with massive amounts of information drowning our senses, we can focus on what is important and take action.
The brain’s ability to focus on a particular signal while filtering out the rest is now being studied by neuroscientists in detail, and the decades-old studies of the b...
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New Frontiers Of The Signal Strength Study
Neuroscientists are now also looking at the basal ganglia region of the brain, commonly associated with motor control, apart from reward-based learning and decision making.
The new frontiers of this study include the brain’s attention, action cues and even the elusive subject of
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Related collections
Other curated ideas on this topic:
Pain can be felt without tissue damage
Activity in the neurons that responds to injury is called nociception. It allows us to recognise and label different kinds of damaging stimuli, such as slamming your hand in the door or burning it on a stove.
Researchers wanted to observe what happens in the brain when we're exposed to dam...
Some neuroscience terms defined
The brain operates in a complex way with many parts intersecting and interacting with each other simultaneously. So, when you have that thought in the morning, it's likely that all these different component of your brain (prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, neurons, neurotransmitters, etc.) are all i...
More Serotonin = More Focus
All you need to do [to increase serotonin levels] is remember positive events that have happened in your life. This simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is a region just behind the prefrontal cortex that controls attention.
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