Lifeboat Foundation

For decades, scientists have focused on how the brain processes information in a hierarchical manner, with different brain areas specialized for different tasks. However, how these areas communicate and integrate information to form a coherent whole has remained a mystery.

Now, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have brought us closer to solving it by observing how neurons synchronize across the human brain while reading. The findings are published in Nature Human Behavior and are also the basis of a thesis by UC San Diego School of Medicine doctoral candidate Jacob Garrett.

“How the activity of the brain relates to the subjective experience of consciousness is one of the fundamental unanswered questions in modern neuroscience,” said study senior author Eric Halgren, Ph.D., professor in the Departments of Neurosciences and Radiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine.