A team of scientists from the Biozentrum of the University of Basel (Switzerland) concludes in their latest study published in the journal Neuron that learning about the relevance of the images we see every day modifies our brain’s neural networks, learning to distinguish what that is important from the banal.
Thus, the way in which we perceive our environment, usually overloaded with stimuli, is influenced by filters of relevance and irrelevance that classify and process all stimuli; Therefore, what we have seen and learned before helps our brain to act more effectively and faster .
The most representative example is found when driving with the reaction difference between experienced drivers and beginners. The former have experience evaluating different traffic situations. Beginners need more time to process information and classify it . The way to optimize these reactions is as simple as learning.
The researchers carried out an experiment with mice, examining the visual cerebral cortex of rodents (the area responsible for the transformation and perception of visual stimuli) while they ran in a virtual reality environment with several images and one of them associated with a reward. After a week, the mice learned to filter through all the images, and their brain activity was transformed as well. The learning motivated many more neurons to react to important stimuli (the reward).
“From one day to the next, the response of neurons to the images became increasingly distinguishable and reliable. But surprisingly, the expectation of a stimulus, even before it appears, and the anticipation of a reward also alter the activity of specific brain cells. This means that, from one moment to the next, our brain can process the same stimulus very differently ”, explains Adil Khan, co-author of the study.
The work has also shown that it is not only the visual cortex that processes images but also other regions of the brain are activated and influence when classifying visual information : “This means that our previously learned knowledge, our expectations, and the context in which we are can have a great impact on our visual perception of the environment ”, clarifies Sonia Hofer, leader of the study.
