Brain region linked to introspective thinking

World Science

“There may be dif­fer­ent lev­els of con­scious­ness, rang­ing from simply hav­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence, to re­flect­ing up­on that ex­pe­ri­ence. In­tro­spec­tion is on the high­er end of this spec­trum. By meas­ur­ing this pro­cess and re­lat­ing it to the brain we hope to gain in­sight in­to the bi­ol­o­gy of con­scious thought.”

The brain re­gion found to be ap­par­ently linked to in­tro­spec­tion is the called the an­te­ri­or pre­fron­tal cor­tex, right be­hind our eyes, said the sci­en­tists, who were led by re­searcher Ge­raint Rees of the uni­vers­ity. The “gray mat­ter” in this re­gion tends to be larg­er in people with great­er in­tro­spective abil­ity, they ex­plained. Gray mat­ter con­sists of the types of brain cells chiefly known for pro­cessing in­forma­t­ion, called neu­rons.

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