New Delhi, The brain's hypothalamus could be critical in helping to switch between behaviors for survival, such as hunting prey and escaping from a predator, a new study has found.
The almond-sized hypothalamus, located deep in the human brain, is known to be important for survival. It is sometimes known as the body's "thermostat" for its role in maintaining temperature, as well as regulating hunger, thirst, fatigue and sleep.
However, researchers at the California Institute of Technology, USA, have discovered that the hypothalamus also helps an individual switch between seemingly opposite behaviors, such as hunting prey and escaping from predators, even though previous studies have suggested that the Brain region is critical for changing behaviors in animals.
According to the authors, the finding expands our understanding of the role of the hypothalamus in ensuring survival.
The results also suggest that developing a "specialized" brain process that helps switch between survival states, such as hunting or escaping, would be "very advantageous," the authors said in the study published in the journal PLoS Biology.
The team of researchers scanned the brains of 21 people playing a virtual survival game, in which participants controlled an avatar on a computer monitor, making it switch between two modes of behavior to survive: one, in which the avatar had you had to search for a virtual prey and two, where you had to escape from a virtual predator.
While participants participated in the game, their brains were scanned using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique over four-hour periods.
To analyze these brain scans, the researchers developed a model based on artificial intelligence that could differentiate between the movements shown by the avatar while hunting and those made while escaping. The team then linked these movements to changes in the activity of the hypothalamus, seen in fMRI scans.
Thus, the authors found patterns of activity in the hypothalamus, along with that of nearby brain regions, related to the switch between the two modes of behavior to survive.
Additionally, they also discovered that the strength of hypothalamus activity could help them predict how well the participant would perform on their next survival task.
"These findings expand our understanding of the human hypothalamus from a region that regulates our internal bodily states to a region that changes survival behaviors and coordinates strategic survival behaviors," the authors wrote.
The almond-sized hypothalamus, located deep in the human brain, is known to be important for survival. It is sometimes known as the body's "thermostat" for its role in maintaining temperature, as well as regulating hunger, thirst, fatigue and sleep.
However, researchers at the California Institute of Technology, USA, have discovered that the hypothalamus also helps an individual switch between seemingly opposite behaviors, such as hunting prey and escaping from predators, even though previous studies have suggested that the Brain region is critical for changing behaviors in animals.
According to the authors, the finding expands our understanding of the role of the hypothalamus in ensuring survival.
The results also suggest that developing a "specialized" brain process that helps switch between survival states, such as hunting or escaping, would be "very advantageous," the authors said in the study published in the journal PLoS Biology.
The team of researchers scanned the brains of 21 people playing a virtual survival game, in which participants controlled an avatar on a computer monitor, making it switch between two modes of behavior to survive: one, in which the avatar had you had to search for a virtual prey and two, where you had to escape from a virtual predator.
While participants participated in the game, their brains were scanned using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique over four-hour periods.
To analyze these brain scans, the researchers developed a model based on artificial intelligence that could differentiate between the movements shown by the avatar while hunting and those made while escaping. The team then linked these movements to changes in the activity of the hypothalamus, seen in fMRI scans.
Thus, the authors found patterns of activity in the hypothalamus, along with that of nearby brain regions, related to the switch between the two modes of behavior to survive.
Additionally, they also discovered that the strength of hypothalamus activity could help them predict how well the participant would perform on their next survival task.
"These findings expand our understanding of the human hypothalamus from a region that regulates our internal bodily states to a region that changes survival behaviors and coordinates strategic survival behaviors," the authors wrote.
