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posted by LaminatorX on Friday October 03 2014, @08:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the your-brain-on-screwdrivers dept.

Researchers from Technische Universität München (TUM) and the Klinikum rechts der Isar hospital have analyzed the brain networks that control the use of tools or other utensils. Their chosen method of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) shows the areas of the brain that are activated when a person thinks, moves and performs actions.

...

In the MRI study, the subjects received ten everyday objects, including a hammer, a bottle-opener, a key, a lighter and a scissors as well as some unfamiliar objects. Their task was to either use the objects or simply lift them up and place them down again, first with the left and then with the right hand. When they analyzed the data, the scientists looked at the planning phase and the actual execution phase separately. In this way, they were able to identify the brain networks that were activated while the subjects planned and used a tool and those that controlled execution.

Read the rest at Technische Universität München's site.

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by geb on Friday October 03 2014, @11:17AM

    by geb (529) on Friday October 03 2014, @11:17AM (#101335)

    A lot of species have a brain area that deals with rapid series of muscle movements in a predetermined sequence. Anything that makes complex sounds has something similar. Birds have it, and use it to mimic noises. Humans have a corresponding one that handles elements of speech.

    It's been seen that a similar pattern happens for other trained-in muscle sequences, such as tying knots. It uses the same kind of brain activity as speech, requiring just a small simple input to trigger the sequence, then replaying a long complex coordinated set of movements. Same whether using lungs, tongue and voicebox, or all the various muscles in the fingers.

    I guess this research means that at some point in our ancestry, a generalised "movement" centre got split off into segments and we now have several related but seperate specialised regions. Cool.

    • (Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Friday October 03 2014, @01:33PM

      by Buck Feta (958) on Friday October 03 2014, @01:33PM (#101374) Journal

      > A lot of species have a brain area that deals with rapid series of muscle movements in a predetermined sequence

      And yet if you burp, fart, and hiccup at the same time your heart will stop and you will die. How crazy is physiology?

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    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by tathra on Friday October 03 2014, @03:15PM

      by tathra (3367) on Friday October 03 2014, @03:15PM (#101410)

      tools are seen as body parts [scientificamerican.com] by the human brain (possibly the primate brain as well). if you really pay attention, its easy to see this in action yourself - consider when you're driving your vehicle, and when you're a passenger. i at least notice my perception actually changes when i'm driving, pushing outwards to focus more on everything outside the vehicle and subconsciously running constant distance/time calculations because my brain is treating the car like my body, none of which happens as a passenger. its also easy to notice if you've had a lot of training/experience with any kind of weapon, especially melee; they really do become extensions of your body.

      if it is some kind of automatic replay thing like you suggest, its probably tying in to or replicating the same ones used to move limbs.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 03 2014, @05:43PM

        by frojack (1554) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 03 2014, @05:43PM (#101463) Journal

        you've had a lot of training/experience with any kind of weapon, especially melee;

        Where does that happen, exactly, outside of video games?

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        • (Score: 2) by tathra on Friday October 03 2014, @06:14PM

          by tathra (3367) on Friday October 03 2014, @06:14PM (#101471)

          deployed soldiers, people training in martial arts, anyone who does fencing or kendo... just because weapons aren't critical to survival anymore doesn't mean nobody uses them.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday October 04 2014, @01:08PM

          by VLM (445) on Saturday October 04 2014, @01:08PM (#101672)

          My wood chopping axe, a baseball bat, various hammers, and machetes for clearing vines and bushes when you don't care what it looks like.