Alerts are processed provided that they attain the mind throughout temporary receptive cycles. This timing mechanism explains how consideration filters data and will inform therapies and brain-inspired applied sciences.
It has lengthy been acknowledged that the mind offers precedence to the data we direct our consideration towards. A well known instance is the cocktail occasion impact.
“In an surroundings filled with voices, music, and background noise, the mind manages to focus on a single voice. The opposite noises will not be objectively quieter, however are perceived much less strongly at that second,” explains Dr. Eric Drebitz, a mind researcher on the College of Bremen.
In such instances, the mind channels its processing energy towards probably the most related enter—just like the voice of a dialog accomplice—whereas different sounds are nonetheless registered however not processed as deeply.
Drebitz: “Till now, it was unclear how this survival-critical mechanism of choosing related data is managed. Once you cross a road and a automobile immediately seems from the facet, the mind instantly focuses its processing on this one piece of visible data – the motion of the car. Different impressions, resembling indicators, passersby, or billboards, fade into the background as they distract our consideration and decelerate our response. It’s only by way of this focused prioritization that we’re capable of react shortly and take evasive motion.”
Timing: The Key to Data Processing
A analysis workforce led by neuroscientists Andreas Kreiter and Eric Drebitz has now delivered the primary causal proof for the way the mind selects and processes necessary data.
“Whether or not a sign is processed additional within the mind relies upon crucially on whether or not it arrives on the proper second – throughout a brief part of elevated receptivity of the nerve cells,” explains Drebitz. “Nerve cells don’t perform constantly, however in speedy cycles. They’re extremely lively and receptive for only a few milliseconds, adopted by a interval of decrease exercise and responsiveness. This cycle repeats roughly each 10 to twenty milliseconds. Solely when a sign arrives simply earlier than the height of this lively part does it alter neuronal conduct.”
This exact timing is the core precept of knowledge processing. Consideration takes benefit of this mechanism by adjusting the rhythm of nerve cells in order that related indicators attain them throughout the receptive window, whereas irrelevant indicators are filtered out.
In an effort to show the reason for this elementary mechanism of our mind, selective stimulus transmission was studied in rhesus monkeys – a species that is very similar to humans in the organization of the cerebral cortex. The animals performed a visual task on a screen while very weak electrical stimuli were generated in an early section of the visual processing pathway (area V2). These artificial signals were unrelated to the task and served solely as test stimuli. The team then analyzed how these signals affected a downstream area (area V4).
“The artificially triggered signals only influenced the activity of the nerve cells in V4 when they arrived during a short phase of increased receptivity. If the same signal arrived too early or too late, it had no effect. If it arrived within the sensitive time window, it not only changed the activity of the nerve cells, but also the behavior of the animals: they reacted more slowly and made more mistakes – from which it can be concluded that the test signal, which contained no information for the task, became part of the processing and thus interfered with the performance of the actual task,” explains Drebitz.
Important for Understanding the Brain and Treating Alzheimer’s and ADHD
“The results provide a basis for developing more precise models of the brain. They show how information is selected and prioritized before it leads to perception, learning, and behavior,” says Drebitz. However, this knowledge is not only important for foundation research, but also for the field of medicine, “since diseases such as Alzheimer’s and ADHD are associated with problems in the selective processing and storage of relevant information. And also for new technologies such as brain-computer interfaces that communicate directly with the brain.” For such systems to work reliably, they must feed in information at precisely timed intervals and correctly read the nerve cell patterns. The development of artificial intelligence (AI) could also benefit from these principles, as they could serve as a template for particularly flexible and efficient processing.
Reference: “Gamma-band synchronization between neurons in the visual cortex is causal for effective information processing and behavior” by Eric Drebitz, Lukas-Paul Rausch and Andreas K. Kreiter, 11 August 2025, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-62732-8
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