Opening: the brain of the blind distinguishes light from darkness

Light plays a huge role for our brain, it is it that stimulates its work when it is necessary (and nature believes that this is needed during the day), increases our activity and mood and helps to cope with many cognitive tasks. The study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience established unexpected: it turned out that the brain could see light, even despite blindness. This hypothesis was proved on the example of three absolutely blind patients. Including and turning off the blue light, the scientists asked the experimental to indicate when the room was lit and when not.

“We were amazed when we found that their brain reacts markedly into the light, although the experimental people themselves see nothing,” the researchers say .

True, it turned out that the blind people in this process do not participate in cones and sticks , which usually are responsible for vision, but a separate type of photoreceptors located in the retina. They, scientists believe, remain in working condition even when other receptors are not able to perceive light.

The same study proved that light is able to stimulate mental functions in blind people, just as it usually acts on the sighted. Functional MRI showed, for example, that blue light stimulates the areas of the brain involved in solving the problems of memorization.

Scientists believe that the photoreceptors discovered by them - the component of the so -called “default” network of the nervous system ( Default Mode Network - these are areas of the brain that are most active in those minutes when a person is not busy with a specific business, but does not sleep). This theory could explain to us how exactly light affects the performance of the brain, and in the future, researchers say, new knowledge can change our perception of the concept of human vision in principle.

Read also - revolution in medicine? Scientists came up with how to treat Alzheimer's disease →

- Found another function of garbage DNA - repair telomeres →

- Person to order. Genetics have found a way to change appearance before birth →