Messi's brain

Ryan_Cule

barça amor d mi alma
In the late 70's of last century, the neurologist Benjamin Libet revolutionized the scientific field of consciousness to discover that our brain makes decisions before we are aware of them. Strange as it may seem to humans on foot, in our brain are put in place the necessary mechanisms to carry out a concrete answer at least half a second before we have made ​​the decision to carry out. Is there by both free will? What is will? few years later, Antonio Damasio (Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research 2005) sparked another revolution, also set on solid scientific evidence: most of our decisions are not the result of reason, but our visceral feelings. The emotional brain system reacts quickly to stimuli, long before even being aware of them. The resulting emotional feeling we would immediately call for action: fight or flight. In fact, for any activity, any such everyday how to choose the coat that we are going to take to work. With the findings of Libet and Damasio the human mind was in a bad place, or at least not in that central place we have always assumed that when we have called our species sapiens. All these data, however, why would not that surprising resultarnos if you think about where we came from and how we got here. We must not forget that we are a product of natural selection as Darwin made ​​clear. Being human, and therefore the brain, is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of competition to survive and reproduce in a hostile environment, a place where you had to act before thinking, because of these basic milliseconds our survival depended.





Hunters and warriors

The means by which that information came to be taken into account was, in the case of man, of two types. One was a wild, the African savannah, where the view is lost in the horizon and in which are located many animals, of which some can be prey and other predators . The other was a social environment, the human group in which we must fight to get the best position, because it also depends on our access to resources and our chance to let more and more offspring. As a final result we have become a species consists of beings who are primarily hunters and warriors, highly trained brains. That was not good hunter or warrior kept good offspring. human being today, the urban environment, is essentially the same as that which arose in Africa about 200,000 years, only moved to a more artificial scenario. Today there to hunt, no need to defend territory. But missing are not heroes. It's just that we find in other areas. We need heroes, and where better to find an activity to test where the best physical and mental qualities of a hunter and a warrior team sport. One need only take a look at the media to realize where are the heroes of the century. Who moves huge amounts of money, people, emotions ... The elite players are the most admired heroes of today. It is natural (in all senses of the word), then prove to have physical and mental capabilities far superior to the rapid and coordinated action in a large space containing friends, enemies and goals to achieve . A football game is our modern equivalent a primordial battle or hunting in a group of antelope on the savannah. What we seek in the XXI century heroes is like looking for hundreds of thousands of years. One of our most prominent contemporary heroes, no doubt, is the football player Leo Messi. No where in the world has not been heard of it. Earns his team and shows a tremendous physical and mental strengths to the game. Are the same as natural selection has been promoting in our species: manage a vast amount of information and make quick decisions. Your brain must always know where to find the other players on his team and the opponent, how and where to move. And all this on the run, moving, taking many initiatives practically instantaneous. Messi's brain is a marvel of human evolution. It brings so extraordinary, some of the key adaptive success of the human species. We began by saying that decisions are made ​​by our brain unconsciously. That is the question: however much you ask Messi how it does, what strategies they used, what he thinks and how he comes to do so during a game, chances are you know we do not answer with certainty.









Within the organism

To find out what makes it so special Messi must look directly into his brain. This is what we propose a team of researchers led by Pieter Medendorp, the prestigious Donders Centre for Cognition , a Dutch institution with high research history behind them. Given the great interest of the objectives of this study, as it is to discover some of the brain mechanisms that the human species in such high esteem, the research budget is one million and half euros, a figure unthinkable for our country, where lies our player casually.

Electrical activity

The Dutch center has the latest technology to study the brains of Messi. it may analyze both the electrical activity of neurons and their consumption of glucose they do every time you try hard. It therefore will know what nuclei, structures and neural circuits are implemented, and when, while Messi decisions. It is known that some of these nuclei and structures are specialized in providing instant emotional value to each situation, they are parts primitive brain, such as the nucleus accumbens or the amygdala, and lie deep in the brain. At the same time, the cerebral cortex, which is the most modern and developed structures, discusses the details of the situation, recover past actions and future plans other. The most favorable emotionally will be chosen. All this, as we have said, occurs in milliseconds, but if there is any conflict between the possible alternatives quickly involved the anterior cingulate, a curious band of gray matter located in the anterior half of the frontal lobes containing a very special neurons that only share with great apes and whales (very social animals). In case of conflict, then, the girdle acts, and in less than one second. It is a true bridge between the rational and emotional worlds. These circuits are therefore involved when decisions are difficult and snapshots, and are the same as Messi, have to use frequently surgeons, pilots or bullfighters. Dutch Study results will tell us what proportion contribute to its success instantaneous emotional reactions , perceptions, their estimates of distances, speeds and directions, memory, attention, anticipation and a large number of variables that may monitor. The group of scientists has proposed to study the brains of Messi in motion. And is that the brain does not act equally in all situations. Hopefully investigations Medendorp and colleagues soon give good results and we know scientifically based What is so special about the brain of one of the best players in the world.

A group of researchers from the Donders Centre for Cognition Dutch study of the brains of Messi. His way of making instant decisions, their ability to advance or a choice between many variables will be some of the "evidence" to be submitted to the player. Manuel Martín-Loeches, the UCM-ISCIII, discusses the keys to work.
 

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