14 DAY TRIAL // Brain scientists have known for a long time that the human brain becomes aware of the actions it's about to make more than a second before they actually occur. Still, the conscious mind is just the last stage of the process, as the subconscious part of the cortex knows about the decisions you've made on an issue even before you make them. Just recently, researchers at the University of California in Davis (UCD) have conducted a new series of tests, which have revealed that the brain actually knows it's making a mistake about a second before it actually happens.
In order to make sure that their results are not far-fetched, the experts, led by researcher Ali Mazaheri, who has also been the leader of the new study, have used a magnetoencephalography (MEG) machine, able to record all the fluctuations of brain waves for each of the test subjects.
The researchers have employed an extremely boring test for the experiment, as they sat people in front of a computer, on whose screen a number from 1 to 9 appeared every 2 seconds.
Subjects had to press the number they saw, except for the figure 5. But the test was made so monotonous, that approximately 40 percent of all test subjects pressed 5 when the number appeared on the screen. The MEG readings of those individuals who pressed the wrong button were then carefully analyzed, and the researchers noted that just before they made a mistake, the brains of participants exhibited higher levels of activity in two very specific regions.
For example, alpha wave activity in the occipital portion of the brain (at the back of the head) exhibited a 25 percent increase in the second just before the person pressed the number 5 button, even though they were not supposed to. Mu wave activity in the sensorimotor cortex also exhibited a spike at the same time. Increased activities in these regions were not observed in the MEG recordings of people who refrained from pressing the wrong button.
“The alpha and mu rhythms are what happen when the brain runs on idle. Say you're sitting in a room and you close your eyes. That causes a huge alpha rhythm to rev up in the back of your head. But the second you open your eyes, it drops dramatically, because now you're looking at things and your neurons have visual input to process,” Mazaheri explained in a statement.
“Instead of watching behavior – which is an imprecise measure of attention – we can monitor these alpha waves, which tell us that attention is waning. And that can help us design therapies as well as evaluate the efficacy of various treatments, whether it's training or drugs,” he added, saying that children suffering from ADHD could be some of the main beneficiaries of the new discovery.