Scientists may have finally solved a long-standing mystery over why it doesn't get dark when we blink.
Humans blink around once every five seconds to keep our eyes moist, briefly shutting off light from our eyes.
Researchers have now found a brain region that they believe provides a picture of our surroundings while our eyes are closed for each brief second.
It remembers what we've just seen and overlays the image onto the dark patches during blinks to create a continual image.
Scientists say the region, which is involved in our short-term memory, allows us to maintain a stable idea of what's around us despite regularly shutting off our vision.
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The brain's medial prefrontal cortex (highlighted in green) helps us understand the world around us while blinking. It remembers what we've just seen and overlays the image onto the dark patches produced by blinking to create a continual image
An international team of researchers, including scientists from New York University, investigated a region of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex.
It plays a role in short-term memory and decision-making, and the team suspected it was also important in helping us remember our surroundings while blinking.
The team believed the region retains visual information for a short period of time and then rapidly puts it together to form a continual image without interruptions.
To test this, they hooked electrodes up to the brains of patients with epilepsy.
They were shown a rectangular dot lattice on a screen, which could be perceived as either horizontal or vertical, and asked which orientation they saw.
They were then shown a second dot lattice - this one a hexagonal shape that can seen as one of three orientations - and were asked again to indicate the direction of the points.
Scientists say the medial prefrontal cortex, which is involved in our short-term memory, allows us to maintain a stable idea of what's around us despite regularly shutting off our vision (stock images)
If both answers were the same, researchers concluded the subject had used their perception of the first lattice to inform their judgement of the second one.
While the subjects performed the task, their brain activity in the prefrontal cortex was recorded by the team so see how it contributed to the decisions.
In one of the subjects, a section of their brain was removed due to an earlier illness, and she was unable to store the visual information.
The researchers showed that the medial prefrontal cortex was heavily involved in decisions based on short-term memory.
They suggest the brain region is therefore key to our ability to continue perceiving the world around us while we blink.
WHAT DOES THE CEREBRAL CORTEX DO?
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis tracked the growth of 30 premature babies' brains for a new report.
They found that studying the babies' brain folds in their cerebral cortices might hold answers to how cognitive diseases begin.
The cerebral cortex coats the cerebrum and cerebellum's surface.
The cerebral cortex coats the cerebrum and cerebellum's surface. File photo
The vital tissue layer is as thick as a stack of two or three coins, according to the US National Library of Medicine.
Its name comes from the Latin word meaning 'bark'.
Most information processing occurs in the cerebral cortex, and it is sometimes referred to as 'gray matter'.
The cerebral cortex is gray because nerves there do not have the insulation which makes other areas of the brain white.
Folds in the cerebral cortex increase the brain's surface area and the amount of information the organ can process.
Lead researcher Dr Caspar Schwiedrzik, from the German Primate Centre in Göttingen, said: 'Our research shows that the medial prefrontal cortex calibrates current visual information with previously obtained information.
'It thus enables us to perceive the world with more stability, even when we briefly close our eyes to blink.'
He added that the brain region is useful in many aspects of our perception of the world around us.
'Even when we see a facial expression, this information influences the perception of the expression on the next face that we look at,' he added.
In further studies, the researchers want to investigate, among other things, the role that confidence in one's own perception plays in perceptual memory.
Link hienalouca.comhttps://hienalouca.com/2018/09/24/why-doesnt-it-get-dark-when-you-blink/
Main photo article Scientists may have finally solved a long-standing mystery over why it doesn’t get dark when we blink.
Humans blink around once every five seconds to keep our eyes moist, briefly shutting off light from our eyes.
Researchers have now found a brain region that they believe provides a...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca
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