Brain oscillations reveal that our senses do not experience the world continuously

[Geriatrix]

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-brain-oscillations-reveal-world.html

Researchers at the University of Glasgow have demonstrated this is indeed the case. Just as the body goes through a 24-hour sleep-wake cycle controlled by a circadian clock, brain function undergoes such cyclic activity – albeit at a much faster rate.

Professor Gregor Thut of the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, said: “Rhythms are intrinsic to biological systems. The circadian rhythm, with its very slow periodicity of sleep and wake cycles every 24 hours has an obvious, periodic effect on bodily functions.

“Brain oscillations – the recurrent neural activity that we see in the brain – also show periodicity but cycle at much faster speeds. What we wanted to know was whether brain function was affected in a cyclic manner by these rapid oscillations.”

The researchers studied a prominent brain rhythm associated with visual cortex functioning that cycles at a rate of 10 times per second (10Hz).

They used a ‘simple trick’ to affect the oscillations of this rhythm which involved presenting a brief sound to ‘reset’ the oscillation.

Testing subsequent visual perception, by using transcranial magnetic stimulation of the visual cortex, revealed a cyclic pattern at the very rapid rate of brain oscillations, in time with the underlying brainwaves.

Prof Thut said: “Rhythmicity therefore is indeed omnipresent not only in brain activity but also brain function. For perception, this means that despite experiencing the world as a continuum, we do not sample our world continuously but in discrete snapshots determined by the cycles of brain rhythms.”

The research, ‘Sounds reset rhythms of visual cortex and corresponding human visual perception’ is published in the journal Current Biology.

More information: Romei et al., Sounds Reset Rhythms of Visual Cortex and Corresponding Human Visual Perception, Current Biology (2012), doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.03.025

Provided by University of Glasgow (news : web)

 

[Dr.G]

Interesting !

 

[porchrat]

but surely this has been known for a while now. I mean... all of our TVs and everything work on the principle of human beings perceiving motion at around 24 frames per second.

 

[Devill]

but surely this has been known for a while now. I mean... all of our TVs and everything work on the principle of human beings perceiving motion at around 24 frames per second.

Maybe they thought speed of eye =! speed of brain.

 

[porchrat]

Maybe they thought speed of eye =! speed of brain.

How?... I mean... in that case the eye will be the bottleneck and so you are still hamstrung by the speed of that eye. That the visual cortex could run many cycles faster is irrelevant. Your brain can't pull additional frames per second out of thin air.

This would be like having the fastest supercomputer in the world attached to a floppy drive... the machine is still only able to process the information from that floppy drive as fast as that floppy drive can supply it.

 

[Devill]

How?... I mean... in that case the eye will be the bottleneck and so you are still hamstrung by the speed of that eye. That the visual cortex could run many cycles faster is irrelevant. Your brain can't pull additional frames per second out of thin air.

This would be like having the fastest supercomputer in the world attached to a floppy drive... the machine is still only able to process the information from that floppy drive as fast as that floppy drive can supply it.

As with a lot of tech these days maybe the case was made that the eye is the bottleneck but the brain "fills" in the info gaps thus still running continuesly and the eyes known to have limitations.

Also note that I say "maybe", as in a also find it strange that this was the subject of a study only now.

 

[grok]

Wow .. snooze .. interesting .. snooze .. stuff!

 

[porchrat]

As with a lot of tech these days maybe the case was made that the eye is the bottleneck but the brain "fills" in the info gaps thus still running continuesly and the eyes known to have limitations.

Also note that I say "maybe", as in a also find it strange that this was the subject of a study only now.

Even if your brain fills in the gaps so you see it as continuous action then your senses are still running on snapshots of the world around them and we have known that for many many years because as I mentioned before all of our TV technology has functioned on the principle of 24 frames per second being able to be perceived as fluid continuous movement by humans.

 

[Devill]

Even if your brain fills in the gaps so you see it as continuous action then your senses are still running on snapshots of the world around them and we have known that for many many years because as I mentioned before all of our TV technology has functioned on the principle of 24 frames per second being able to be perceived as fluid continuous movement by humans.

I think that the study points to the fact that the brain also runs in cycles.

 

[porchrat]

I think that the study points to the fact that the brain also runs in cycles.

"Brain oscillations reveal that our senses do not experience the world continuously "

Bad title.

I see your point though. Eventually. My bad.

Makes sense that your brain would run in cycles. After all it is receiving snapshots in time and must process each snapshot as it receives it.