What happens in the brain when we focus

Focus on something one can be difficult. This is because our brain is constantly collects and filters the information.

Mehdi Ordikhani-Seyedlar

Neuroscientist. Explores the brain signals, and methods for their use in brain-computer interface.

The brain depends on the type of attention

Attention is of two types: voluntary and involuntary. In the first case, we focus on something at will, for example the following view of some object. In the second it happens unconsciously. Imagine that you are driving a car. You are consciously aware of the way, but at the same time involuntarily commit the information about everything that is happening around you.

Depending on the type of attention the brain works differently. Ordikhani-Seyedlar conducted an experiment to see how different patterns of brain activity during voluntary and involuntary attention.

The subjects looked at the screen, where a different frequency flickering two squares. When the subjects were focused on the same square, only activate the occipital lobe of the brain responsible for processing visual information. When this fixed frequency square observed.

But when they looked in the center of the screen and not looking back, focused on some square, the brain is a fixed frequency of both figures. In addition, activated frontal lobe of the brain. It is filtered, from a square to pass information to and from any block.

What it does in practice

Ordikhani-Seyedlar believes that this ability of the brain to filter the information - the key to solving problems with attention. For example, the brains of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder do not filter out unnecessary information, and because of this they can not concentrate. If there was a way to connect the brain to the computer, and train a person to this, the problem would be solved.

In addition, to teach a computer to recognize patterns of brain activity, we would be able to read the minds of people in a coma or give the opportunity to communicate to those who have lost the ability to speak after a stroke.