Do underused brain areas adapt to different tasks? If so, isn't this an expected result?
When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
31–40 of 67 posts
Re: When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that the article says sighted people do not have an increase in that area when doing algebra. I tend to agree with the premise of the article, which is brain areas can be reapportioned for different tasks.
I'm pretty sure that I engage the visual part of my brain in those moments when I truly understand algebra. It's very beautifully overwhelming and understanding such complex mathematics through visualisation brings about one of the few moments where I get naturally high through cognitive tasks. I wouldn't consider myself a very visual person otherwise.
It's possible. That would still fit the general premise that people can "rewire" their own brains through use. One of the leading theories of Synesthesia is that different areas of the brain are not separated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_basis_of_synesthesia#Cr...
It would follow that it is possible that they could then be rejoined as well.
Re: When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
#33When people see, the brain's algebra area lights up.
Except that the article says sighted people do not have an increase in that area when doing algebra. I tend to agree with the premise of the article, which is brain areas can be reapportioned for different tasks.
I wonder if sighted people have so much activity in that area all the time that the noise drowns it out.
Re: When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that the article says sighted people do not have an increase in that area when doing algebra. I tend to agree with the premise of the article, which is brain areas can be reapportioned for different tasks.
I'm pretty sure that I engage the visual part of my brain in those moments when I truly understand algebra. It's very beautifully overwhelming and understanding such complex mathematics through visualisation brings about one of the few moments where I get naturally high through cognitive tasks. I wouldn't consider myself a very visual person otherwise.
I'm the same way and came to a similar conclusion a while back. For me, understanding math has been an incredibly visual process more than anything. It's a very useful heuristic. Programming is similar, but its discreteness seems to make it significantly less visual.
Re: When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
#35Re: When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure that I engage the visual part of my brain in those moments when I truly understand algebra. It's very beautifully overwhelming and understanding such complex mathematics through visualisation brings about one of the few moments where I get naturally high through cognitive tasks. I wouldn't consider myself a very visual person otherwise.
> I'm pretty sure that I engage the visual part of my brain in those moments when I truly understand algebra. With no offence meant to your self knowledge, and with the understanding that you were probably not one of those tested and that our (meaning their, I guess) understanding of the workings of the brain is imperfect, I think that the point of brain imaging software is in large part so that we don't have to rely…
> With no offence meant to your self knowledge, and with the understanding that you were probably not one of those tested and that our (meaning their, I guess) understanding of the workings of the brain is imperfect, I think that the point of brain imaging software is in large part so that we don't have to rely on "I'm pretty sure", and indeed can have confidence even in unintuitive conclusions.
Self-knowledge is not a good way to divine the functioning of the brain. However, one could say fMRI is not a good way either, at the very least studies based solely on fMRI data should be taken with a boatload of salt. See for example: http://www.pnas.org/content/113/28/7900.full
> Functional MRI (fMRI) is 25 years old, yet surprisingly its most common statistical methods have not been validated using real data. Here, we used resting-state fMRI data from 499 healthy controls to conduct 3 million task group analyses. Using this null data with different experimental designs, we estimate the incidence of significant results. In theory, we should find 5% false positives (for a significance threshold of 5%), but instead we found that the most common software packages for fMRI analysis (SPM, FSL, AFNI) can result in false-positive rates of up to 70%. These results question the validity of a number of fMRI studies and may have a large impact on the interpretation of weakly significant neuroimaging results.
Re: When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that the article says sighted people do not have an increase in that area when doing algebra. I tend to agree with the premise of the article, which is brain areas can be reapportioned for different tasks.
I wonder if sighted people have so much activity in that area all the time that the noise drowns it out.
Talk about double blind testing.
Re: When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get your point but it's absurd to call V1 - V3 an "algebra area". We actually do have a thing called "primary visual cortex" and mental calculations are known to exploit a number of existing functional areas (visual word-form area, primary visual cortex, etc).
I don't think that the name many humans have agreeds to call an area of the brain is an objectively true label for it. I mean it's not like there's an owners manual for the human brain.
The point is that it's pretty clearly a visual area above all else. The pathway from the eye to V1 is possibly the most extensively studied functional neuroanatomical pathway in the brain.
It's also well-established that it takes input from other regions and that this adjusts visual percepts. The idea that mathematical operations recruit visual areas is unsurprising and predicted by every theory of numerical cognition there is. That's why this is interesting.
I'm sorry, but what you're claiming is patently absurd (and, I suspect, purely contrarian).
Re: When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
#39There is an old idea that the visual cortex involved when we visualize past experiences or memorized material. It probably has a recall machinery.
With the blind subjects, perhaps, this activity (dealing with abstractions) has been registered as a distinct (due to lack of sensory input), while in the control group it is drowned in the noise of normally functioning visual cortex.
So, it is interesting but inconclusive. Also fMRI can't be used as a method of discovery, because it is based on very approximate statistical models. Something is going on there. Well, there always something is going on.
Re: When Blind People Do Algebra, the Brain's Visual Areas Light Up
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I heard the visual areas were predetermine simply because the oculor nerved terminates there. So if somebody was blind from birth they're claiming that some specialization might be hardcoded after all.
Biological GPGPU?
So you're saying we can use blind people for BTC mining? :3 Sorry I couldn't help myself.