Know how your Brain pays Attention

A new study has shed light on the human brain where they have uncovered the cellular mechanisms that is there behind human brain’s ability to pay attention to relevant information while ignoring distractions. There have been many studies on the attention in the brain, as in the cellular mechanism that is responsible for its effects of attention. But researchers say that it has been a mystery until now.

The research conducted by researchers from Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the University of California Davis actually studied communications between synaptically connected neurons under conditions where subjects shifted their attention toward or away from visual stimuli that activated the recorded neurons, sharpen the precision of these signals, and selectively boost the transmission of attention-grabbing information while reducing the level of noisy or attention-disrupting information.

Co-author Farran of the study which was published in the journal Nature said, “While our findings are consistent with other reported changes in neuronal firing rates with attention, they go far beyond such descriptions, revealing never-before tested mechanisms at the synaptic level."

Briggs, the assistant professor of Physiology and Neurobiology at the Geisel School of Medicine further said that the study could help people with attention deficits resulting from brain injury or disease. This could possibly lead to improved screening and new treatments.

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