The hippocampus is particularly active when a person solves conflicts quickly and successfully. Credit: © RUB, Grafik: Bierstedt
In everyday life, people are confronted with decision conflicts, especially if they need to suppress an action that would have made sense under normal circumstances. eg when the pedestrian lights go green, a pedestrian would normally start walking. If, however, a car comes speeding along at the same time, the pedestrian should stay where he is.
METHOD: Study participants heard the words “high” or “low” spoken in a high or low tone, and they had to state – regardless of the meaning of the word – at what pitch the speaker said them. If the pitch doesn’t correspond with the meaning of the word, a conflict is generated: the participants would answer more slowly and make more mistakes. Nikolai Axmacher and colleagues used fMRI.
RESULTS: The hippocampus was active in such conflicting situations; this applies particularly when a person solves the conflicts quickly and successfully. They gained the same results in epilepsy patients who had EEG electrodes implanted in the hippocampus for the purpose of surgery planning; this is how the researchers could measure the activity in that brain region directly.
“Our data show first of all a completely new function of the Hippocampus — processing of activity conflicts,” says Carina Oehrn from the Department of Epileptology at the University Hospital of Bonn. “However, in order to answer the question how that function interacts with memory processes, we will have to carry out additional tests.” “Perhaps the memory system becomes particularly active if a conflict has been successfully resolved,”. “Permanently unsolved conflicts can’t be used for learning helpful lessons for the future. According to our model, the brain works like a filter. It responds strongly to resolved conflicts, but not to unsolved conflicts or standard situations. However, we have to verify this hypothesis in additional studies.” http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/index_en.htm
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