How do humans focus on their senses and pay attention?
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Human beings are alive while grasping the surrounding situation by obtaining various sensory information such as senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, pain sensation, and sense of balance. However, because a huge amount of information is obtained from the whole body, it is necessary to “ concentrate and pay attention to what you want to pay attention ” when you want to focus on specific information. Scientific media Quanta Magazine explains what happens in the brain when people are paying attention to something.
To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a Spotlight | Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-pay-attention-the-brain-uses-filters-not-a-spotlight-20190924/
Francis Crick , who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for DNA double helix analysis, published the Searchlight Hypothesis in 1984 as a theory explaining the mechanism of human attention. The thalamus near the center of the head is a part of the diencephalon, which plays a role in relaying sensory information other than olfaction to the cerebral cortex , which controls higher functions such as consciousness, thought, and memory. The searchlight hypothesis sung by Crick thinks that the thalamic network-like nucleus that covers this thalamus selects sensory information and concentrates on the necessary information. In other words, 'the thalamic reticular nucleus functions as a gatekeeper that controls information, not just a bridge between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex.'
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2015, the research team led by Michael Harassa Associate Professor is a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, using the mouse, which was trained to run and to sense the flashing light and sound, the mechanism of the searchlight hypothesis verification . We observed how mice ignore light and sound and how they are paying attention while blocking the activity of various parts of the brain.
As a result, we first found that the direction of attention was controlled by the prefrontal cortex of the cerebral cortex. It was also found that when the neurons related to the vision of the thalamic reticular nucleus are excited, the visual ability of the mouse decreases. Also, when neurons related to the vision of the thalamic reticular nucleus were turned off, the mouse was unable to pay attention to the specified sound.
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The research team has an inhibitory neuron that blocks sensory information in the thalamic reticular nucleus, which is excited by a command from the prefrontal cortex to remove unnecessary sensory information input to the thalamus. I pointed out. For example, when the mouse responds to sound, the thalamic reticular nucleus removes visual information according to instructions from the prefrontal cortex, so that attention to vision cannot be directed.
In other words, the human brain does not “strengthen only the information that should be noted from what is visible / heard”, but “throws out unnecessary information that does not need to be noted from what is visible / heard” This means that attention is realized by the mechanism.
by Max Pixel
Duje Tadin, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester, said, “Eliminating and ignoring less important things is a more efficient way to process information. When you ’re in a noisy room, It ’s about whether you can put it out and make it audible to the other party, or remove the cause of the noise. ”
In 2017, Associate Professor Harassa researched the functional effects of the brain in the same way as the 2015 experiment, and found the sensory information circuit that supports the searchlight hypothesis. According to Associate Professor Harassa, sensory information entering the cerebrum is sent from the prefrontal cortex to the basal ganglia , which controls movement and cognition, and fed back to the thalamic reticular nucleus. In other words, Associate Professor Harassa reported that the basal ganglia controlled inhibitory neurons in the thalamic reticular nucleus according to the instructions of the prefrontal cortex.
However, if anything other than what you want to pay attention to is completely excluded as unnecessary information, it could lead to fatal mistakes if important information is included. In a research paper published in 2018, we found that thalamic reticular nucleus suppression was weakened approximately four times per second to avoid over-concentrating on a single stimulus. With this amplitude, it is possible to create a chance to pay attention to sensory information other than the concentrated part as needed.
'My research shows that human attention is not a continuously shining beam, but a flashing spotlight,' said Princeton University neuroscientist and paper writer. “The brain seems to be wired regularly to be distracted,” he explained.
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