Triggering the Brain’s Auto Focus

Summary: A new study pinpoints the brain area responsible for forming direct links between environmental stimuli and enhanced focus.

Source: Journal of Neuroscience.

Researchers have identified brain structure that connects environmental signals to enhanced focus.

We are constantly being inundated with attention-grabbing distractions, from the flashy shopfronts and advertisements that surround the sides of the road to the tempting buzz of the phone.

For a long time, brain scientists assumed that maintaining focus in these situations required a flow of these mental events: momentary distraction, followed by the realization that our attention has been diverted and a responsive effort to bring it back to the task at hand.

But recent research reveals that our brains actually have a clever mechanism for overcoming these distractions. With continuous practice, environmental signals — such as a particularly busy intersection, or your superior’s office — can trigger the brain to jump directly into a more focused state, outwitting distraction and saving precious time.

In a recent study, Duke University researchers combined brain imaging with a celebrity naming game to identify the structure in the brain responsible for forming direct connection between environmental stimuli and increased focus. This structure, called the caudate nucleus, is also known to play a key role in connecting motor actions to their outcomes.

The brain’s ability to automatically activate increased focus was first revealed in 2011, and little is understood about how it handles this process.

To resolve the neural mechanisms involved, the researchers subjects to carry out a variation on a classic test of mental control, called the Stroop test, while their brain activity was observed with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The findings from the study shows up the brain’s ability to form well-learned, reflexive reactions, such as reaching for the phone when it buzzes is not always at odds with intentional behavior, and actually the two processes can actually work together.