Tracking a Thought as it Moves Through The Brain is Quite Remarkable

But it highlighted more than just how ideas pass through our grey matter.

Transcript

00:00When we use our brains, neurons fire carrying electrical signals to different parts of our

00:09body.

00:10And while we loosely know how different parts of our brains are responsible for dealing

00:13with different functions and thought processes, for the first time ever, scientists from the

00:17University of California Berkeley say they've been able to track a thought as it travels

00:21through the brain.

00:22But how?

00:23They used what's called electrocorticography, or ECOG, a method that records individual

00:27neuron electrical activity on epilepsy patients during surgery.

00:31While hundreds of electrodes were attached to their brains, the participants were asked

00:34to listen or look at stimuli and in turn respond or make an action.

00:38And researchers found they could track the perception of audio cues as they entered areas

00:42known to be associated with processing sounds through the brain and into the prefrontal

00:46cortex, an action-devising area of the brain, and further into the motor cortex, where eventually

00:51the participants performed whatever action they were prompted to perform.

00:54And while most of this was expected, the experiment highlighted more than just giving

00:58a real-time view of thoughts moving through a human brain.

01:00It also revealed just how important the prefrontal cortex is in most of our thought processes,

01:05with Robert Knight, UC Berkeley neuroscientist, calling the prefrontal cortex the quote, glue

01:10of cognition.