Until now it has always been assumed that the right hemisphere of the brain serves for creativity and that the left half is our rationale, the neuroscientists Stephanie Forkel of Radboud University and Michel Thiebaut de Scots of the University of Bordeaux have, after research, arrived at a whole different view. According to them, brain functions are not located in individual brain areas, but rather arise from the exchange between the areas. These researchers published about this in the special edition of Science on 4 November.
Look at the brain differently
It is therefore high time that this outdated ‘modular’ view disappears from textbooks. “We need to look at the brain in a different way,” said neuroscientists. “Look at language, for example,” says Forkel. ‘In this case, the result is truly greater than the sum of its parts. To communicate you have to understand very quickly what is being said in a certain context. In doing so, you must include the emotional intentions of the person you are talking to. If the brain worked in a modular way, it wouldn’t be possible for us to do all these different language calculations in such a short time.”
It is therefore an important fact that compounds can strengthen or weaken brain signals and thus determine the structure and function of the brain. There is a strong relationship between the pattern of connections between brain regions and their activity during cognitive tasks. This makes it possible to predict on the basis of the connections where a certain function will arise in the brain. “If you look at children’s brains, you will see that the white matter, which consists of nerve pathways, is connected to the ‘classical’ reading area, even before they have actually learned to read,” Forkel continues.
Impact on treatments
The ‘old teaching’ created a gap that meant that the way in which the modular brain was viewed could not explain the differences between people. With the new insights it is now possible to map the variation between brains; for example as a result of evolution. These new insights will have a major impact on medical treatments. Forkel: “There are brain injury patients without symptoms or with symptoms that you would not expect. We studied how the lesions affected the entire brain network, and with the new model we were able to predict which symptoms patients had or which symptoms they would develop a year later.”
The research team believes that researchers are building professional networks to connect multiple neuroscience fields to benefit research work from this new model. This could and should lead to better neuroimaging methods, personalized anatomical brain models and greater clinical impact. The research has also been published in Science.
Previously, Radboudumc developed a set of growth diagrams for brain development. This also made it possible to generate reference models for brain aging and thus have great clinical potential. Among other things, to be used to predict the development of brain disorders.
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