Dream and brain
were circulated to the results of an interesting fMRI study on brain structures involved in the different characteristics of dreams. The study was published in 'Human Brain Mapping' and was conducted by researchers at the Department of Psychology of Wisdom and the Department of Clinical and Behavioral Neurology IRCCS Saint Lucia, in collaboration with the University 'Aquila and Bologna . The
includes a number of neuroimaging techniques to visualize the activity of certain brain structures while the subject performs certain tasks, or in this case while dreaming. You can get very sharp images that allow you to compare the metabolic activity of brain structures during a task and at rest.
In this study, the amygdala and hippocampus, two structures located in the deep part of the brain are related to some qualitative characteristics of dreams, or the emotional intensity, vividness, bizarreness of dreams. A greater volume of the left amygdala is associated with milder dreams and emotionally less intense, while the size of the hippocampus and amygdala volume increased right are related the strangeness and vitality.
The hippocampus is a structure involved in memory formation, while the amygdala is involved in emotional responses, is also the emotional salience of rresponsabile structure of our memories. Both structures are archaic mental processes involved in forming an immediate response to external stimuli or internal. E 'then the cerebral cortex which is responsible for mediating between the activity of the deep nuclei and the external needs. Think of a reaction generated intense anger in response to an insult, which is then mediated by the cortex to produce an appropriate response (not allowing us to jump to the neck of one who has offended us.)
Premesso che le ricerche vanno considerate per ciò che sono, ovvero risultati ottenuti su un numero esiguo di persone sottoposte ad una condizione molto particolare quale l'essere soggetti di un esperimento, questo risultato è davvero interessante ed illumina uno dei fenomeni psichici più misteriosi. Confermando, peraltro, la salienza emotiva del sogno, e la sua capacità di parlarci delle nostre reazioni emotive profonde, quelle che generalmente vengono mediate ed adattate dai meccanismi di controllo corticali.
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