![]() Subjects were asked to look at a grating pattern in the center of a screen, and told to use mental effort to increase the contrast of the pattern as they looked at it, making it more visible.ĭuring the task, subjects were scanned using magnetoencephalography (MEG), which reveals brain activity with millisecond precision. To test whether alpha waves actually regulate attention, the researchers designed an experiment in which people were given real-time feedback on their alpha waves as they performed a task. However, it was unclear if alpha waves control attention or are just a byproduct of some other process that governs attention, Desimone says. In humans and in animal studies, a decrease in alpha waves has been linked to enhanced attention. Previous studies have shown a strong correlation between attention and alpha brain waves, particularly in the parietal cortex. Alpha waves, which oscillate in the frequency of 8 to 12 hertz, are believed to play a role in filtering out distracting sensory information. There are billions of neurons in the brain, and their combined electrical signals generate oscillations known as brain waves. ![]() Daniel Baldauf, a former McGovern Institute research scientist, and Dimitrios Pantazis, a McGovern Institute principal research scientist, are also authors of the paper. McGovern Institute postdoc Yasaman Bagherzadeh is the lead author of the study. The researchers are now planning additional studies of whether this type of neurofeedback training might help people suffering from attentional or other neurological disorders.ĭesimone is the senior author of the paper, which appears in Neuron on Dec. It’s unknown how long these effects might last and whether this kind of control could be achieved with other types of brain waves, such as beta waves, which are linked to Parkinson’s disease. “It’s a completely noninvasive way of controlling and testing the role of different types of brain activity.” “There’s a lot of interest in using neurofeedback to try to help people with various brain disorders and behavioral problems,” says Robert Desimone, director of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research. This is the first time that this cause-and-effect relationship has been seen, and it suggests that it may be possible for people to learn to improve their attention through neurofeedback. The study found that when subjects learned to suppress alpha waves in one hemisphere of their parietal cortex, they were able to pay better attention to objects that appeared on the opposite side of their visual field. In a new study, the researchers found that people can enhance their attention by controlling their own alpha brain waves based on neurofeedback they receive as they perform a particular task. Having trouble paying attention? MIT neuroscientists may have a solution for you: Turn down your alpha brain waves.
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