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" rick off your brain , relax , and be adrift down stream … "
perhaps John Lennon was onto something when he wrote those words for the Beatles ' strain " Tomorrow Never sleep together . "
It turns out that that reality and mental imagery flow in dissimilar directions in the mastermind , researcher say . The visual info from actual events that the eyes see flows " up " from the brain ’s occipital lobe to the parietal lobe , butimagined imagesflow " down " from the parietal to the occipital .
" There seems to be a lot in our brainiac and animal brains that is directional — thatneural signalsmove in a particular direction , then stop , and part somewhere else , " enunciate Dr. Giulio Tononi , a psychopathology professor and neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin - Madison and one of the study ’s co - authors . " I think this is really a unexampled theme that had not been explored . "
The finding , published in the November issue of the daybook NeuroImage , may lead to a serious understanding of how the Einstein processes light - term memories and how memory is connected to resource , the researchers said .
By " flow , " the scientist are referring to the oecumenical guidance of electrical signaling of neuron in the brain . This direction is orient against the various lobes of the brain . [ Inside the brainiac : A Photo Journey Through Time ]
The occipital lobe model in the lower , back part of the brain . Containing the optic cortex , this lobe ’s primary function is to process ocular information . The parietal lobe lie down above the occipital lobe , and its primary mapping is to integrate centripetal information , such as vision , but also touch and wakeless . In doing so , the parietal lobe forgather elementary construction bricks from so - called " miserable - order " genius regions to create concepts , enjoin Daniela Dentico , a research worker at the University of Wisconsin - Madison and lead generator on the report .
A direct theory inimage processing"posits that our visual mental paradigm are not stored somewhere in the brain , but get actively reconstructed , " Dentico tell Live Science . The brain does this , she said , by reversing the guild it utilise for visual percept . She trace this as the " top - down " direction , which pop from the prominent conception and moves back toward the belittled elements .
" Our study make up the first direct measure of the prevalence of top - down signaling flow rate during imagination , " Dentico added .
To mold the current of neural sack , the Madison researchers , along with scientists at University of Liege in Belgium , ask study participant who were hooked up to an electroencephalography ( EEG ) machine to watch videos or to imagine antic scenes , such as travel on a magic bicycle . EEG is an established proficiency that use sensors on the scalp to measure underlie electrical activity .
But because the brain is n’t " smooth , " EEGs be given to disclose the clamor of brain activity , said Barry Van Veen , a professor of electric and computer technology at Madison and senior author on the story .
So , to zero in on the flow of reality and imaginativeness , the research worker created complex statistical mold requiring high - throughput computing . From this , they could determine , for the first time , the average directional flow of neural firing during the chore of ascertain and imagining .
The research worker could not determine , however , whether imaginativeness originates in the parietal lobe . It may instead flow through the parietal lobe from the head-on lobe , the mentality region most associated withhuman intelligence . This is a topic for further investigating , the research worker say .
