IMAGE: WIKIMEDIA COMMONSWhile it has long been known that humans and other primates consciously control their brain activity in order to produce and regulate movement, recent studies of ADHD patients and others revealed that people can also consciously control activity in movement-related brain areas without moving at all. Now, the same ability has been discovered in monkeys: Macaque monkey can actively increase the neural activity of certain brain regions to improve their concentration and better identify visual targets, according to research published yesterday (May 26) on Science Express.
This is the first example of "direct" neural control in these animals, said Robert Schafer, a neuroscience postdoc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and lead author on the study. The monkeys were able to alter their brain activity "without eye movements, visual stimulation, or training of any behavioral response," he said.
"In the past, functional MRI studies have shown that humans can modulate brain activity when they are given instant feedback about their brain activity. These kinds of studies have not been done in monkeys until now," Joshua Brown, director of the Cognitive Control Lab at Indiana University who was not involved with the research, told The Scientist in an email. "The advantage of studying monkeys in this way is that it is possible ...
