"In a recent study in Neuron, researchers identified a brain region that generates what they call a reality signal. This signal is then evaluated by another regionone that, when it functions abnormally, has been linked to schizophrenia. Understanding this reality-monitoring circuit could help scientists understand, and possibly even treat, schizophrenia and other disorders that impair the ability to discern reality."
"We tend to think that we perceive reality as it is, with cameralike eyes that objectively log the light that hits them. But as information from the eyes flows into the brain, it becomes more abstract and subjective; lines and colors, discerned in the brain's early visual-processing regions, transform into concepts and meaning when they reach higher-level cortical networks. This bottom-up processing is only one part of the story."
Imagining an object activates brain visual areas similarly to seeing that object, creating neural overlap because both require the visual system's processes. The brain differentiates imagination from perception via a reality-monitoring circuit: one region produces a reality signal and another region evaluates that signal; abnormal function in the evaluator region has been associated with schizophrenia. Understanding how bottom-up sensory input transforms into abstract concepts in higher cortical networks and how top-down cognition influences perception clarifies why expectations alter perception. Clarifying this circuit could inform understanding and potential treatments for disorders that impair the ability to discern reality.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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