I came across an interesting article about our brain. I am not sure if this is the right place to present it but you can move it if you’d like and maybe someone will be interested:
Attention Requires Balanced Brain Activity
By JANE COLLINGWOOD Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 5, 2014
Psychologists have made important discoveries into attention problems in schizophrenic individuals. Tobias Bast, Ph.D., and colleagues at Nottingham University in the U.K. explain that inhibitory signals between brain neurons are crucial for healthy brain activity.
But disruptions to this inhibition can cause attention problems. Hence increased brain activity is not always beneficial.
In tests on rats, the team either inhibited or disinhibited the prefrontal cortex, a brain region linked to planning, decision-making, and social behavior. This showed that both inhibiting and disinhibiting the prefrontal cortex led to attention deficits. In order to pay attention, neuron firing needed to be within a certain range.
Bast believes this is relevant for people with schizophrenia, as studies have indicated unusual neuron firing in their prefrontal cortex. Problems sustaining attention can have a significant impact on many aspects of patients’ lives, such as following conversations, driving, and keeping a job.
Full details are published in The Journal of Neuroscience.
Resources:
http://www.scienceclarified.com/Ci-Co/Cognition.html