Everyone receives a variety of information from the environment at all times, some of which is remembered and some of which is ignored. Why is that?
A diagram of the human brain
A new study found that an area of the brain called the Anterior Insular Cortex (AIC) acts as a “switch”: messages that reach this area are successfully responded to by the person’s conscious mind, and messages that do not pass through this area become Messages that do not pass through this area become those that the person feels “not paying much attention” to.
A team of researchers at the University of Michigan conducted two experiments to obtain this result.
In the first experiment, researchers asked participants to imagine playing tennis, finding their way, and squeezing their hands, and to actually engage in one activity – squeezing a ball in their hands. The researchers found that when the participants imagined doing one thing, the area of the brain that controls action was activated; when they actually performed an activity, the other areas of the brain were significantly less active, and the participants’ attention was focused on the actual activity.
To find out which area of the brain was in charge of switching between these activated and dormant states, the researchers administered different doses of anesthetics to the participants and monitored the activity of various areas of the brain throughout their waking and dormant state of consciousness while they reached different levels of anesthesia.
It was found that the anterior insula cortical area of the brain played a key role in the switch in consciousness.
While the earliest studies showed that the anterior insula cortex is associated with people feeling such emotions as fear and happiness, recent research has suggested that this area is also responsible for perceptual attention, i.e., whether to respond to information from the senses. This new study supports this new theory.
To further confirm the role of this area in people’s awareness, researchers conducted a second experiment. The researchers showed participants a picture of a person on a screen for just a flash, then switched to another contrasting picture, but for a much longer period of time.
Afterwards, the experiment participants were asked if they had seen the photo on the initial screen. The results showed that a greater percentage of participants with more active anterior insula cortical areas of the brain saw the first photo while the experiment was being conducted. In other words, the study concluded that people were more conscious when the anterior insula cortical area was more active.
The study was published May 4 in the journal Cell Reports.
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