Newswise — Can one literally “lose oneself” in an experience? Many theoretical models of the mind reject this notion, proposing that awareness is dependent on the mediation of areas involved in self representation – a vigilant, self-aware “observer” network – in the human brain. Prof. Rafael Malach, Ilan Golberg and Michal Harel of the Weizmann Institute’s Neurobiology Department found a scientific means of addressing this question – by scanning the brains of volunteers performing various mental tasks. The results of their study, which were published recently in the journal Neuron, were unanticipated: When subjects were given outwardly-focused tasks that demanded their full attention, areas of the brain that relate to the self were not only inactive – they appeared to be vigorously suppressed. "It is tempting," says Malach, "to put these findings in a broader perspective, one that veers away from traditional western thought, with its emphasis on self-control and for which 'someone is always minding the store,' and toward more eastern perspectives, in which the 'self must be abandoned in order to fully engage with the outside world.'" On a more scientific level, their study suggests that the brain’s self-awareness centers do not function as a critical element that allows perceptual awareness of the outside world. Rather, the self-related areas of the prefrontal cortex appear to be engaged specifically when we are aware both of the sensory experience and of ourselves as the observers of this experience. When we are so occupied with the outside world as to "forget ourselves," only local, sensory-specific systems seem to be needed. Prof. Rafael Malach’s research is supported by the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurosciences; the Clore Center for Biological Physics; the Carl and Micaela Einhorn-Dominic Brain Research Institute; the Murray H. and Meyer Grodetsky Center for Research of Higher Brain Functions; the Edith C. Blum Foundation; and Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Green, Boca Raton, FL. Prof. Malach is the incumbent of the Barbara and Morris Levinson Professorial Chair in Brain Research. |