Your Brain Cells May 'Know' More Than You Let On By Your Behavior

Source: Salk Institute

http://www.salk.edu/news/releases/details.php?id=150

October 19, 2005

We often make unwise choices although we should know better. Thunderstorm clouds ominously darken the horizon. We nonetheless go out without an umbrella because we are distracted and forget. But do we? Neurobiologists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies carried out experiments that prove for the first time that the brain remembers, even if we don?t and the umbrella stays behind. They report their findings in the Oct. 20th issue of Neuron.

"For the first time, we can a look at the brain activity of a rhesus monkey and infer what the animal knows," says lead investigator Thomas D. Albright, director of the Vision Center Laboratory.

First author Adam Messinger, a former graduate student in Albright?s lab and now a post-doctoral researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md. compares it to subliminal knowledge. It is there, even if doesn?t enter our consciousness.

http://www.salk.edu/