In a kind of spooky experiment, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences reveal that our decisions are made seconds before we become aware of them.

In the study, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their right or left hand.

The only condition was that they had to remember when they made the decision to either use their right hand or left hand.

Using fMRI, researchers would scan the brains of the participants while all of this was going on in order to find out if they could in fact predict which hand the participants would use BEFORE they were consciously aware of the decision.

The Results

By monitoring the micro patterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex, the researchers could predict which hand the participant would choose 7 SECONDS before the participant was aware of the decision.

“Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done,” said study co-author John-Dylan Haynes, a Max Planck Institute neuroscientist.

I don’t even know where to begin here! I know from the hypnosis research that the unconscious pretty much controls everything and that consciousness is extremely limited.

But, I do find it a bit disconcerting that decisions are made by unconscious me 7 seconds before conscious me…

I am not the only one.

Watch Marcus Du Sautoy (Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford) go through the study himself. The 7 second delay is in full effect.

Marcus is really disturbed here and brings up the subject of free will. Does this mean we really do NOT have free will? I am really curious what you think about this, please comment below.

Source:
Chun Siong Soon, Marcel Brass, Hans-Jochen Heinze & John-Dylan Haynes, “Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain.” Nature Neuroscience, April 13th, 2008.

At one point in time, we have all been told that it is best to learn a new skill slowly. To learn to hit a correct forehand in tennis, you need to practice over and over again. To prepare for a test in school, you should study every day leading up to the exam.

This is still great advice, but what if you practice or study consistently and show no signs of improvement?

Should you just give up?

No, you shouldn’t, and here is why:

It turns out that for a lot of tasks, improvement doesn’t come gradually…but instead comes in a flash of insight and clarity, and BOOM: you are perfectly able to hit that forehand or able to ace your test.

Scientists at the Brain Research Center at the University of British Columbia sought to find out if there was activity in the brain that mimicked this ‘eureka!’ moment of clarity, and their findings, although not too surprising, are quite interesting.

Frontal Lobes

Previous research has already determined that the ability to apply new rules (or learn a new skill) lies in the frontal lobes. This is where the executive control center of the brain is located.

A new study, published in the May 2010 issue of Neuron, sought to find out how the neurons in the frontal cortex (in rat brains, which operate similarly enough to ours to test) will switch from encoding a familiar rule (or behavior) to a completely new rule that could only be tested through trial and error.

In other words, when the rats are forced to figure out a new task, how would their frontal lobes react to learning new behaviors?

The Study

To see how the brain would respond, the rats were set up in a cage with two levers. Each lever had a light over it, which switched from the left to right levers. If the rats pressed the level that had the light over it, they would receive a treat.

After the rats were successful at this 20 times in a row, the researchers changed the game so that the rats would only get a reward from pressing the right level, regardless of which one had the light.

It took the rats between 30 to 40 trials to fully comprehend and conquer the new game and reward system.

In other words – it took about 30 to 40 trials to learn the new behavior.

Analyzing Brain Patterns

Brain scans showed that although there were different brain patterns going on in the rat’s frontal lobes while learning the new behavior, they actually had to learn the new behavior for the lights to go on…literally.

The researchers offer an analogy that compares the patterns in the brain to a string of lights. All the lights on the string are on (representing the neurons constantly firing within the brain) but for each different pattern, SOME of the lights would shine brighter than others.

When the rats comprehended the new task for the first time, researchers noticed a vastly different pattern of ‘lights’ in the frontal lobe, likening this pattern to their ‘eureka!’ moment, when the rats first successfully completed the new task and received a reward.

Measuring Success

The results suggest that when measuring improvement, you may not see constant improvement – but instead you are more likely to see big improvements in chunks over time.

As the researchers note, “there are situations where…it’s really an all or none shift in the brain.”

The big issue then is how do you know when you are improving if you can’t measure gradual improvement? More research is needed here as I don’t think we know the answer.

So, as you are learning something new, like a tennis stroke, do not get discouraged if it doesn’t appear you are making any progress at first. It takes your brain time to learn the new skill set, just as it took for the rats in the experiment.

However, instead of quitting, keep trying, because your ‘eureka!’ moment of clarity may be just moments away.

SOURCES:
Durstewitz, Daniel, Nicole M. Vittoz, Stan B. Floresco, and Jeremy K Seamans. “Abrupt Transitions between Prefrontal Neural Ensemble States Accompany Behavioral Transitions during Rule Learning.” Neuron. May 2010. Volume 66, 438-448.

If you surf around the internet often, I imagine you have seen advertisements claiming that brain software can increase your intelligence.

You know, just play this video game and get smarter…sounds great!

But not so fast, there are actually people out there that research this stuff to see if they work…

This Study Says “Not So Fast” on the Online Brain Game Claims

Members of the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Britain’s Medical Research Council decided to get to the bottom of this with a test group of 10,000 people.

Over the course of six weeks, a group of 4,000 people, from ages 18-60, were given online games to play, designed to make you smarter – in terms of improving memory, reasoning, and other cognitive skills.

They were given instructions to play the games for a set amount of time: 10 minutes per day, 3 times per week.

A second group, roughly the same size and of the same age group as the first, were given online games to play that tested other skills, including short-term memory, attention span, and certain types of math.

A third control group, smaller at about 2,000 people but of the same ages as well, were told to surf the web as usual.

Both before and after the experiment, all participants were given IQ tests. The researchers then compared the test results to determine if any of the individuals had gotten smarter from the games.

The results, published in the latest online issue of the journal Nature, suggested brain games did not improve any cognitive functions at all.

Lead researcher, Adrian Cohen, went as far as to say that this study proved the games did not increase a person’s IQ at all either.

There is a Debate about the Study

It is worth noting that the researchers involved in this study created both the IQ tests and the brain games used in the experiments. They claim (and they are a bunch of Neuroscientists) that their games represent what is currently being sold on the market.

The companies in the industry, of course, deny this. At the moment, I simply do not know who is right but my intuition is to go with the research.

There are some companies out there that do seem to offer technology that is different from what this study was about, but from what I can see it covers over 95% of the games available now.

I am in discussions with a professor who understands this better than I do and if you are interested we are going to provide you with information on specific online brain games – I just want to get my facts straight first.

What Does This Mean?

Although there is the debate mentioned above, this research does indicate that some of the claims you have been reading are overblown at best. One thing we do know about increasing your intelligence, helping to prevent Alzheimer’s, etc… is that you want to continually challenge your brain in different ways.

Learning a new language, playing a new instrument, learning a new form of exercise, a new dance, or a martial art are proven ways to activate what we call brain plasticity.

New neural pathways can be formed in this way as well and you can learn new fun skills along the way.

As far as the popular online games, there is no harm, but I would wait and see what more experts have to say.

Sources
Nature Advance Online, 464, April 20 2010
Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Britain’s Medical Research Council
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/pdf/nature09042.pdf

Have you ever wondered why swearing seems to be your immediate reaction to pain?

In June 2009, researchers at the Keele University in England sought to determine why the automatic response for so many people in pain is to blurt out swears.

The question at hand was, does simply expressing pain (in a shout, yelp, or cry) make you feel better, or, is it the specific words you choose to yell that helps to lessen pain? Do curse words contain a hidden power that has the ability to help decrease pain?

The Research

To answer these questions, researchers found 68 college-aged students and asked each to submerge one hand in icy water for as long as they could possibly stand it. They were trying to test if students could keep their hands submerged longer if they used curse words or non-curse words.

During the first trial, the students were permitted to swear out loud as often as they needed to see if it could lengthen the period of time that the hand could stay submerged.

During the second trial, the students submerged their other hand in the icy water and this time, they were permitted to say whatever they wanted, as long as it did not contain swearing.

(Fact – one reason behind this study was because the head researcher, Richard Stevens of Keele University, heard his wife hollering expletives when she was giving birth. When she apologized afterward, the nurses and doctors shrugged her off, insisting it happened quite often. Her husband wondered why and sought to find out.)

The *&%#ing Results

It was determined that, on average, swearing students could hold their hands in the water over 40 seconds longer than when they did not swear. (Considering the average individual could keep a hand submerged for only a couple minutes, keeping the same hand under the water for an additional 40 seconds was quite a chilling accomplishment!)

Why were the swearing students able to keep their hands in icy water longer?

Preliminary research has pointed to the amygdala, a gland that makes the heart speed up and the resistance to pain stronger, as the key. It is basically responsible for the “fight or flight” reaction, which you probably have heard of previously.

The working theory is that using actual cuss words somehow activates deep primitive negative emotions, which somehow triggers the amygdala to choose the “fight” response.

The fight response then raises your heart rate and decreases pain sensations, just like swearing after feeling pain.

More research is still needed to determine the exact reason why using actual cuss words is able to induce this response.

So, even though cursing is often thought of as reflective of poor manners, it may be that profane language has the power to decrease pain that general speech does not.

Keele University psychologist, Dr. Richard Stevens, summarized his findings and offered this sound advice after the study was over: “I would advise people, if they hurt themselves, to swear.”

Do you follow the doctor’s orders?

If you want to learn more about the amygdala and it’s connection to hypnosis, please check out this article: click here to read more.

Sources:
NeuroReport, June 2009
Perspectives on Psychological Science, March 2009

A new study published in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Neuron, has identified areas of the brain that, when damaged, leads to a greater sense of self-transcendence.

The higher you are on the self-transcendence scale, the more you view yourself as being an integral part of the universe as a whole… So if you rank low on this scale, it is all about YOU!

And no, the researchers didn’t damage people’s brains just to find out. They somehow got permission to do pre and post personality testing with patients who had to have surgery anyway that would cause selective damage to the left and right posterior parietal regions.

Does One Need Brain Damage to Gain Transcendence?

I seriously doubt it! Remember, this is normally a stable personality trait – so some people just naturally see themselves as part of a greater whole.

And some people spend years in meditation in order to move up the scale. There has been a lot of solid research behind various forms of meditation demonstrating that not only can a person move up this scale in the personality tests…

But also make significant changes to their brain’s structure. But this takes years.

One thing (among others) that is interesting here, is that we now know that by directly altering the brain’s structure through surgery, that deep personality changes can be made… and they aren’t all bad.

Better Living Through Direct Brain Alteration?

According to Dr. Salvatore M. Aglioti from Sapienza University of Rome (one of the researchers):

“If a stable personality trait like self transcendence can undergo fast changes as a consequence of brain lesions, it would indicate that at least some personality dimensions may be modified by influencing neural activity in specific areas,… Perhaps novel approaches aimed at modulating neural activity might ultimately pave the way to new treatments of personality disorders.”

Well, this seems to be opening a whole new can of worms! I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but it seems to me that down the road this could be used to literally change the personalities of those who the powerful deem as, “subversive”.

It could also turn into something like plastic surgery where people go in to get a quick, “personality adjustment”.

And of course, it could become a very valuable tool for people who are living a life of internal pain. Nothing is as simple as it seems.

I hope you found that interesting, if you want more of this type of information – let me know.

Citation: Urgesi et al., ‘The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Lesions Modulate Human Self-Transcendence’, Neuron, February 2010, 65 (3), 309-319; doi:

The June 2009 issue of the Journal Neuron just published a fascinating study that could be the next step towards figuring out how hypnosis actually works in the brain.

As you probably know, I am big into brain science – and especially studies employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). What I like about fMRI is that it provides a window into the brain; allowing scientists to find out what is really going on as opposed to solely relying on reporting or behavioral assessments.

I wish they had this technology when I was in graduate school in the mid 90’s – I never would have left.

Anyway, let’s take you through the experiment. I think you will find this interesting and maybe even helpful in some strange way.

The Study

Researchers recruited 18 healthy volunteers, and asked them to perform a “go-no go” task while their brains were being watched via fMRI.

The participants were first required to fixate on a cross which was shown for half a second. This was followed by a grayscale picture of either a left or a right hand; this was a cue shown to indicate which hand was at play.

After an interval of 1-5 seconds, the hand changed color.

If it turned green, they had to respond, as quickly as possible, by pressing a button with the corresponding hand.

If it turned red, they were to withhold the prepared movement and do nothing.

Here is the Fun Part!

Twelve of the participants played the game both under hypnosis (and told that their left hand was paralyzed), or in a normal state.

6 of the participants performed the task while feigning paralysis (acting “as if” they were unable to move the fingers of the left hand).

Both the control group (the group that feigned paralysis and the hypnosis group were able to resist pushing the button with the left hand – but the brain scans showed that the mechanisms involved were completely different!

This alone blows away the hypothesis that there is no difference between hypnosis and just acting. The evidence against this theory is more than compelling, but it is nice to see this happening in the brain itself.

More about The Test (and why science is so cool)

There were two tests going on here.

First, they were testing how the hypnosis paralysis group suppressed the movement:

It either suppressed the movement in the preparatory level (by not “gearing up” the left hand when the grey left was displayed).

OR

It suppressed the movement after the preparatory level (meaning the brain recognized the left hand and it geared up, but just didn’t allow the left hand to move.

Second (and what is really interesting to me)

By comparing the brain activity measured during hypnosis and in the feigned paralysis group, they could see whether the mechanisms in the brain were similar.

Test One Results – It is Not about the Planning

The results of the first test were pretty interesting. It turns out that when the hypnosis group was shown the grey left hand, that there was in fact brain activity in the right motor cortex which is associated with planning to execute a necessary command on the left side of your body.

In fact in both the hypnosis group and the feigned paralysis group, both group’s brains planned and/or “got ready” to move the left hand. This was true of all the subjects regardless of whether they were not hypnotized or just pretending.

So the answer to the first test is that the preparatory part of the brain is NOT blocked, it happens after preparation.

Test Two Results: Why Hypnosis is not like Pretending

The next step was examining the activity of the motor cortex at the time of actual hand movement execution.

At the time when the movement should be executed, the normal group again showed activity in the right motor cortex, but the hypnotized group did not (kind of expected since they did not move their left paralyzed hand).

However, the hypnotized group did show increased activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortexes (these are involved in executive control and attention). More relevant, there was also increased activity in a part of the brain called the precuneus.

The precuneus is involved in mental imagery and especially in making representations of self (it is heavily involved in creating your self-image).

In the feigning or “pretending” group, these areas of the brain did not experience more activity. Instead, there was increased activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus, which is involved in motor inhibition. (The hypnosis group did NOT experience increased activity in this area).

So What Does this Mean?

Sorry for all the brain talk (don’t worry; I have to refer to charts as well). And of course it is not wise to jump to conclusions. But, this not only shows a difference between pretending and hypnosis – it indicates that hypnosis uses internal representations and self imagery to take control of your behaviors – while “pretending” relies on will power.

Instructions given under hypnosis seem have the ability to override habitual action, without conscious awareness. And it seems to do so by working at the level of self image. This is why it is such a powerful tool for self-change.

The author of the study, Dr. Yann Cojan, said it differently, “These results suggest that hypnosis may enhance self-monitoring processes to allow internal representations generated by the suggestion to guide behavior but does not act through direct motor inhibition,” says Dr. Cojan.

Here is my two cents. Having been “hypnotized” more times than I can count, and talking to our customer base (full disclosure – my company sells hypnosis CDs), the results make sense.

When folks use hypnosis for weight loss, for example, they report that when they go to the fridge to get a snack – it is almost as if something pulls them away from this action. It seems like as the self image is built, it gets in the way of behaviors that were causing you trouble. And this is without a person having to think about it, or use will power.

Anyway, there is still a lot to learn!

I am very interested in what you think about this article, and would love to start a good conversation about brain science and behavior in general.

Please comment and sign up for Intense Debates. I promise to answer any questions on the blog.  My answers are usually replies to specific posts.

Just click the blue “reply” by any comment to see my response.

*Source:
The Brain under Self-Control: Modulation of Inhibitory and Monitoring Cortical Networks during Hypnotic Paralysis
Neuron, Volume 62, Issue 6, 25 June 2009, Pages 862-875
Yann Cojan, Lakshmi Waber, Sophie Schwartz, Laurent Rossier, Alain Forster and Patrik Vuilleumier