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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 11 2020, @06:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the Geraldine-says-"The-Devil-made-me-do-it!" dept.

Breathing may change your mind about free will: Do you think that you are clicking on that button when your mind decides to do so? Think again:

Scientists at EPFL[*] in Switzerland have shown that you are more likely to initiate a voluntary decision as you exhale. Published in today's issue of Nature Communications, these findings propose a new angle on an almost 60-year-old neuroscientific debate about free will and the involvement of the human brain.

"We show that voluntary action is indeed linked to your body's inner state, especially with breathing and expiration but not with some other bodily signals, such as the heartbeat," explains Olaf Blanke, EPFL's Foundation Bertarelli Chair in Cognitive Neuroprosthetics and senior author.

At the center of these results is the readiness potential (RP), a signal of brain activity observed in the human cortex that appears not only before voluntary muscle movement, but also before one becomes aware of the intention to move. The RP is the signature of voluntary action since it consistently appears in brain activity measurements right before acts of free will (like being aware that one wants to reach for the chocolate).

[...] These findings suggest that the breathing pattern may be used to predict 'when' people begin voluntary action. Your breathing patterns could also be used to predict consumer behavior, like when you click on that button. Medical devices that use brain-computer interfaces could be tuned and improved according to breathing. The breathing-action coupling could be used in research and diagnostic tools for patients with deficits in voluntary action control, like obsessive compulsive disorders, Parkinson disease, and Tourette syndromes. Blanke and Hyeong-Dong Park, first author of this research, have filed a patent based on these findings.

[...] More generally, the EPFL findings suggest that acts of free will are affected by signals from other systems of the body. Succumbing to that urge to eat chocolate may depend more on your body's internal signals than you may realize!

Blanke elaborates, "That voluntary action, an internally or self-generated action, is coupled with an interoceptive signal, breathing, may be just one example of how acts of free will are hostage to a host of inner body states and the brain's processing of these internal signals. Interestingly, such signals have also been shown to be of relevance for self-consciousness."

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdf6srnVcM0

[*] EPFL: École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne"

Journal Reference:
Hyeong-Dong Park, Coline Barnoud, Henri Trang, Oliver A. Kannape, Karl Schaller, Olaf Blanke. Breathing is coupled with voluntary action and the cortical readiness potential. Nature Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13967-9


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 11 2020, @08:13AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 11 2020, @08:13AM (#956782)

    So, when something leave you "with bated breath", you are "holding the trigger" of a decision/action about it? :)

    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/with_bated_breath [wiktionary.org]

    CYA

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 11 2020, @08:49AM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 11 2020, @08:49AM (#956784) Journal

    You mean bathed bread [wikipedia.org]? (grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday February 11 2020, @09:40AM (1 child)

      by MostCynical (2589) on Tuesday February 11 2020, @09:40AM (#956788) Journal

      Or baited breath [nutrisourcepetfoods.com]?

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 11 2020, @09:58AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 11 2020, @09:58AM (#956789) Journal

        Too obviously egghorny [lascribe.net] (grin)

        "Waiting with bathed bread" has the finesse of meaning the opposite of "bated breath". Sorta like in "Take your time, don't hurry. Until you finish, I'll be taking mine on the French Riviera, with a bathed bread in front of me" (this is why it's never gonna go mainstream)

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford