Houston - Researchers studying monkeys have found that predictable events cause neurons in the brain's visual centre to become more active.
Dr Geoffrey Ghose, chief scientist at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, said: "We really don't have a great understanding of what changes in the brain when we practice things. These results show that as we practice and anticipate which events are going to happen, the brain is also preparing itself."
The scientists, who reported their findings in the journal Nature, trained two macaque monkeys to pay attention to changes at a specific site on a display screen.
They were rewarded with juice if they pulled a lever when the change occurred. During the experiment, the activity of neurons in the visual cortex was measured.
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"Activity in the neurons went up when the event was likely to happen and went down when it was unlikely to happen," said Dr Ghose. He said based on what they see, apes develop expectations of what might happen next.
The same could be seen in humans. For example, a baseball player anticipated that the pitcher will throw the ball towards him after he winds up, because he has seen this happen many times before. People in every day life used this function of the brain each time they did something routine, such as driving a car or crossing a street.
"Our study gives us some clues of how we make use of our experiences to change specific signals in the brain," said Dr Ghose. "The results are a window into how we represent time. They tell us how accurately we know when things are going to happen and how well we can prepare ourselves." - Sapa-DPA
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