You hear a phone ring or a dog bark. Is it yours or someone else's? You hear footsteps in the night -; is it your child, or an intruder? Friend or foe? The decision you make will determine what action you take next.
May 10 2024Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown You hear a phone ring or a dog bark. Is it yours or someone else's? You hear footsteps in the night -; is it your child, or an intruder? Friend or foe? The decision you make will determine what action you take next. Research ers at the Champalimaud Foundation have shed light on what might be going on in our brains during moments like these, and take us a step closer to unraveling the mystery of how the brain translates perceptions into actions.
A different approach The researchers tackled these queries by devising a task for mice. Postdoc Raphael Steinfeld, the study's lead author, picks up the story: "To unravel what signals related to future actions might be doing in sensory areas, we thought carefully about the task mice would have to perform. Previous studies often relied on "Go-NoGo" tasks, where animals report their choice by either making an action, or not moving, depending on the identity of the stimulus.
Deep connections After six months of rigorous training, the researchers could finally begin recording neural activity in mice as they performed the task. They focused on the auditory cortex, the part of the cortex responsible for processing what we hear, which they had already shown was required for the task.
Origin and role of choice signals So, what might the origin of these choice signals in the auditory cortex be? "Interestingly", notes Renart, "the early sensory signals in the auditory cortex don't seem to predict the mice's eventual choice, and the choice signals emerge significantly later.
Brain Cortex Frequency Neuron Neurons Research
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Understanding the brain mechanisms behind emotion processing bias in treatment-resistant depressionOne potential underlying cause of symptoms in individuals with depression is an emotion-processing bias which causes them to have a stronger response to negative information more so than positive.
Read more »
New study furthers understanding of lung regenerationResearchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University (BU) have published a new study detailing the development of a method for generating human alveolar epithelial type I cells (AT1s) from pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
Read more »
Understanding the Karen Read trial: Who killed John O'Keefe?In a high-profile and controversial case, Karen Read is accused of fatally hitting her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, in Canton, Massachusetts…
Read more »
Study suggests a promising new approach to understanding autismAutism spectrum disorder has yet to be linked to a single cause, due to the wide range of its symptoms and severity.
Read more »
Understanding the Mutation and Evolution of Viruses: Introducing the SIRSVIDE ModelA novel computational model named SIRSVIDE (Susceptible-Infected-Recovered-Susceptible-Variation-Immune Decay-Immune Escape) has been developed by Prof. Jian Lu's group at Peking University to study the mutation and evolution of viruses. The model incorporates basic principles of epidemiology and key features of viral mutation and evolution, allowing for the prediction of short-term and long-term evolutionary dynamics of viruses.
Read more »
Study improves understanding of effects of household air pollution during pregnancyIn a new study, researchers from Oxford's Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health have found that pregnant mothers' exposure to air pollution from indoor stoves did not affect the development of their babies in any statistically significant way, challenging conventional wisdom regarding the impact of household air pollution on fetal...
Read more »