Day-dreaming dementia brain
Have you got your head in the clouds? Recent studies of dementia patients are revealing social skills rely on the same parts of the brain responsible for daydreaming, imagination and memory. According to Dr Muireann Irish, successful social interactions rely on a range of complex brain skills.
Have you got your head in the clouds? Recent studies of dementia patients are revealing social skills rely on the same parts of the brain responsible for daydreaming, imagination and memory.
According to Sydney’s cognitive neuroscientist, Dr Muireann Irish, successful social interactions rely on a range of complex brain skills, from things such as memory to imagination.
Dr Irish adds past studies of complex brain skills have relied on a number of different brain structures working together.
When healthy people are left to think for themselves, MRIs show a number of different parts of the brain light up at the same time, which is known as the ‘default network’.
This network is also reportedly known as the “key to remembering the past”.
The researchers reviewed studies of people with early onset dementia, who either had damage to the frontal or temporal lobes – which are two parts of the brain known to help make up the default network.
Those with frontal lobe damage are “impulsive” and tend to make lewd and inappropriate comments in public while those with damage to their temporal lobes have trouble reading emotions or remembering faces or everyday objects.
According to Dr Irish, a person’s antisocial behaviours reflect “different underlying malfunctions” of the default network.
How often do you day-dream? Share your thoughts on this study by commenting in the box below.
