#neuroscience

#neuroscience

Mikaela Shiffrin described the flow state as a 'ball of energy that starts from the start [gate] and that each turn you're actually building this energy.' This encapsulates the essence of being fully engaged and focused during performance.

"I can look at an object in the world around me, but I can also close my eyes and imagine the object," says Varun Wadia, highlighting the dual capability of visual perception and imagination.

Social foraging strategies illustrate the balance between competition and cooperation, where individuals either produce resources or exploit the efforts of others, navigating ecological and social constraints.

Galen Buckwalter, a 69-year-old research psychologist and quadriplegic, participated in a brain implant study to contribute to science that aids those with paralysis. The six chips in his brain decode movement intention, allowing him to operate a computer and feel sensations in his fingers again.

When you rest your brain, your brain activates a network that we call the default network. This network only becomes active when you step away from your work or cognitively-demanding tasks.

They created an artificial 'mental map', with pleasantness along one axis and bodily reactions along the other, and charted how the brain responded while watching clips from films. The results revealed clear groupings in the way that our brains represent emotion - with guilt, anger and disgust in one corner and happiness, satisfaction and pride in the other.

That's how long our physiological response to emotions such as anger lasts, from the time we formulate a thought to the point at which our blood is completely clean of the noradrenaline released in response to it. If you're still experiencing emotional reactions after 90 seconds, you're rethinking the thoughts.

According to the Free Energy Principle (FEP), developed by theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston and colleagues, much of what the brain does can be understood as minimizing such mismatches—a technical form of 'surprise' defined as the improbability of sensory input given an internal model. The proposal brings perception, action, learning, and decision-making under a single framework.

Hyperphantasia is a cognitive trait characterised by an abundance of vivid mental imagery. In an area of developing science (the term was only coined a decade ago), those who identify with this experience have an imagination of lifelike quality and can create detailed images and scenarios in their minds. It can also extend to multiple senses.