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‘Neural noise’ may influence free will, study suggests – Medical News Today.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com
Where does “free will” – our ability to make uninfluenced choices – stem from? According to new research from the University of California-Davis, variation in electrical brain patterns may play a part in voluntary decisions.
The research team, including Jesse Bengson, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis, explains that patterns of electrical activity that fluctuate across the brain make “neural noise.” Past research has indicated that such noise may be important for our perception, cognition and decision-making.
To investigate further, the team conducted a study based on an experiment from the 1970s carried out by Benjmain Libet – a psychologist at the University of California-San Francisco who was also affiliated with the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience.
For his study, he measured the electrical brain activity of participants while they made a decision to press a switch in response to a visual cue.
According to the researchers, just before participants reported that they were going to press the switch, Libet noticed that they demonstrated specific brain patterns.
Full article:
‘Neural noise’ may influence free will, study suggests – Medical News Today.
