5 strange things we discovered about the brain in 2022

Do you know What happens to your brain when you exercise🇧🇷 Did you know that there is a file A neurotransmitter that wakes your brain up to 100 times a night🇧🇷 Science has focused on unraveling the secrets of the most complex organ in the human body, and in 2022, a lot of curiosities about the brain are emerging here in Canaltech🇧🇷 We separate the most interesting!

The brain can “change” the taste of food

In February, scientists at Ohio State University published a study that claimed that The brain can “change” the taste of food when tricked🇧🇷 To achieve this, the team took packages of the same food (chocolate biscuits) and put three labels: “Normal, Factory”, “Consumer Complaints Received” and “New & Improved”.

Participants received a cookie from each group, and then had to answer a satisfaction questionnaire. Coincidentally, they reported only one negative experience (In terms of taste and texture) with cookies related to consumer complaints, even though the product was exactly the same. This means that we can trick the brain into thinking it is consuming something of low quality, even if it is literally the same thing.

Neurons “light up” when you hear someone sing

In March, a study was published in the Scientific Journal Current Biology He indicated that Certain neurons in the auditory cortex light up when we hear someone sing🇧🇷 The researchers recorded the brain activity that occurs in response to external stimuli, and realized that there is a group of neurons that respond to singing, and very soon, there are others that respond to stimuli.

The brain reads colors to the point of changing our moods and behaviour

Scientists this year asked a question: Our brains use color as a visual cue to compensate for touchwhich is why they play such an important role in our preferences and in our behavior in general.

As far as taste is concerned, when we see a food, we make assumptions and expectations about it before we try it, because we have been trained to expect certain colors that lead to certain flavours. What’s more, studies show that 90% of our initial product reviews are based on color.

The brain spends its entire life trying to guess things

In August, a survey revealed that The brain is constantly trying to guess The next word, whether when reading a book or when listening to a speech. According to the study, for each word or sound, the brain makes detailed statistical predictions and ends up being hypersensitive to the point of unpredictability: the brain’s response is stronger when the word is unexpected in context.

The researchers report that in practice, the brain does something similar to speech recognition software, which is also constantly making predictions.

The human brain is so flaccid that it can collapse

The year 2022 ends with the discovery that… The brain is thinner than we thought, to the point of comparing it with a gel. Scientists comment that the representations we know about the brain are rigid, because the organ undergoes some preservation processes to increase rigidity.

However, in nature, if the brain were not enclosed in the skull, it would be a gelatinous substance. Expert theory suggests that the brain material can collapse up to 10 times easier than polystyrene foam packaging. This means that the stiffness is almost non-existent.