New research suggests the imagination and reality flow in opposite directions in the brain.
Researchers tracked the electrical activity in people's brains as they either imagined a scene or watched a real video, and were surprised at what they found, the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported.
"A really important problem in brain research is understanding how different parts of the brain are functionally connected. What areas are interacting? What is the direction of communication?" said Barry Van Veen, a UW-Madison professor of electrical and computer engineering. "We know that the brain does not function as a set of independent areas, but as a network of specialized areas that collaborate."
This research could help provide new insight into what in the brain does during sleep and dream cycles, revealing how it uses networks to encode short-term memory. In their studies the researchers noticed an increase in the movement of information from the parietal lobe of the brain to the occipital lobe, while visual information traveled the opposite way.
"There seems to be a lot in our brains and animal brains that is directional, that neural signals move in a particular direction, then stop, and start somewhere else," Van Veen said. "I think this is really a new theme that had not been explored."
The fascinating study also allowed the researchers to test the power of electroencephalography (EEG), which uses sensors placed directly onto the scalp to detect and measure electrical activity occurring in the brain.
The participants (who were hooked up to EEG) were either asked to watch a short video clip and try to replay the action they observed in their minds or imagine traveling on a bicycle before watching silent nature videos. Using an algorithm to interpret the EEG data the researchers were able to determine the pattern of electricity flow in the brain.
"We were very interested in seeing if our signal-processing methods were sensitive enough to discriminate between these conditions," Van Veen said. "These types of demonstrations are important for gaining confidence in new tools."
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal NeuroImage.
