PAY attention please, using as much of your brain as possible. When your mind wanders during a boring task, it may be because parts of your brain simply disconnect.

Knowing that activity in different brain regions changes when attention lapses, Daniel Weissman of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, wondered if there were also changes in the crosstalk between regions.

Weissman asked volunteers to spend a tedious hour in a functional-MRI brain scanner, identifying letters that flashed on a screen. At times, their reactions slowed, showing that attention was wavering. During these lapses, communication between regions related to self-control, vision and language processing died down.

“Attention failed to grease the connections in the brain,” says Weissman. This is equivalent to these regions disconnecting, he says. Weissman presented the results at a recent neuroscience meeting.

Attention is like a communication amplifier that only focuses on the connections between certain regions at certain times, says Weissman. When the amplifier switches to a new set of connections, existing ones weaken. Communication between those regions slows and attention lapses.

The researchers also noticed one particular region “lit up” during lapses, and used this to predict when the mind would switch its focus. “We’re using brain signals to predict behaviour in the future,” says Weissman.

source: newscientist.com

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