New Brain Study May Aid in Treating ADD

Researches may have figured out how the brain is able to filter when something is important enough to focus on as opposed to just being a distraction.

Researchers have discovered that there are two physically different brain regions involved when the brain is filtering information to determine what is important enough to focus on as opposed to something just being a distraction. Since two different brain regions are involved, it may be possible to treat ADD by treating whichever brain region is not working properly instead of treating the whole brain.

Scientists have always thought there were different regions involved in this thought process, but until now scientists have been focusing studies only on one brain region at a time.

Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led this study that involved hooking monkeys up to wireless electrodes to see how their brain's reacted to different stimuli.

When the monkeys voluntarily concentrated, the so-called executive center in the front of the brain — the prefrontal cortex — was in charge. But when something distracting grabbed the monkeys' attention, that signal originated in the parietal cortex, toward the back of the brain.

The electrical activity in these two areas began vibrating in synchrony as they signaled each other. But it was at different frequencies, almost like being at different spots on the radio dial.

This study proved to be a good first step in finding out how different brain regions react to stimuli in order to determine when something needs to be focused on as opposed to something just being a distraction.

There are still some questions that need to be answered about the interactions between when a certain brain region signals it is time to pay attention. The biggest question may be--How does one region of the brain signal to other regions that it is time to start paying attention as opposed to signaling that something is just a distraction.

Read more at Yahoo News