Originally published September 29 2005
Brain's ability to direct body affected by "noise," study shows
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A University of California study shows that "noise" (defined as the difference between what is actually occurring and what the brain perceives) affects the brain's ability to direct the body's movements, which would account for inconsistent levels of dexterity, and may give insight into disorders such as Parkinson's Disease, Science Daily reports.
The study findings, reported in the September 15 issue of the journal Nature, are part of ongoing research by Lisberger and colleagues on the neural mechanisms that allow the brain to learn and maintain skills and behavior.
"To make a movement, the brain takes the electrical activity of many neurons and combines them to make muscle contractions," Lisberger explains.
The answer, he says, is "noise," which is defined as the difference between what is actually occurring and what the brain perceives.
If there were no noise in the neuromotor system, a player would be able to perform the same motion over and over and never miss a shot.
Our finding is significant because it demonstrates that errors in what is seen can have a bigger impact on motor performance than errors in controlling muscles," says co-investigator Osborne, who conducted the research.
Understanding how noise is reduced to very precise commands helps us understand how those commands are created," adds Lisberger, who also is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a UCSF professor of physiology.
In the study, the research team focused on a movement that all primates, including humans, are very skilled at: an eye movement known as "smooth pursuit" that allows the eyes to track a moving target.
In a series of exercises with rhesus monkeys in which the animals would fixate on and track visual targets, the researchers measured neural activity and smooth pursuit eye movements.
Findings showed that both the smooth pursuit system and the brain's perceptual system were nearly equal.
The differences that exist are likely caused by the separate parts of the brain that are responsible for the separate processes."
He concludes, "Because the brain is noisy, our motor systems don't always do what it tells us to.
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