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
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday February 11 2020, @09:22AM (4 children)
I wonder how this ties in with how many martial arts strike on the exhale? Mostly it comes down to muscle contractions, but depending on how deep you dig into the philosophy end of things, you see that breath and intent are often interchangeable. In Chinese culture "Chi" has many meanings, among them is both breath and intention. It is interesting that 'western' science is finding a connection there too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 11 2020, @10:24AM (3 children)
E.g. 5 consecutive lines from my Finnish-English wordlist (there are about 100 /heng[gk]*/ words/phrases in total, I find it nice that the full range of realms is covered in such a small snippet)
#henkisesti - intellectually, mentally, spiritually
#henkisyys - spirituality, incorporeity, intellectuality
#henkitiede - arts, humanities
#henkitoreissa - be barely alive, be breathing one's last
#henkitorvi - windpipe, trachea
Of course you don't have to look at exotic languages, it's just struck me that English (from French, from Latin, sometimes from Greek) has similar examples too.
E.g. inspiration (creativity), inspiration (breathing in), expiration (dieing), and spirit (self explanatory) are all the same root word.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday February 11 2020, @11:40AM (2 children)
Add Aspirations (hopes and dreams), to your list.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 11 2020, @12:06PM
There are other roots that have interesting clusters of uses. animus, animated, animal, ... (but not inane) - https://www.etymonline.com/word/*ane-?ref=etymonline_crossreference
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 11 2020, @12:40PM
And spirit=liquor - without it, no superior life can exists. Now, excuse me while I'm feeling superior under this table.