Summary: The hypothalamus helps humans switch between survival modes such as hunting and fleeing. Researchers used AI-enhanced fMRI scans to analyze brain activity in 21 participants playing a survival game.
They found distinct patterns of hypothalamic activity associated with behavioral change. This discovery highlights the key role of the hypothalamus in survival strategies.
Key facts:
- The role of the hypothalamus: Crucial for switching between hunting and running.
- AI and fMRI: Researchers used AI-enhanced fMRI scans to study brain activity.
- Survival strategy: Hypothalamic activity predicts performance in survival tasks.
Source: PLOS
The hypothalamus is a small area of ​​the human brain typically associated with the regulation of body temperature, hunger, thirst, fatigue and sleep. But it also has another important role: it helps the brain and body switch between different and conflicting modes of survival, such as hunting prey and escaping predators.
That’s the conclusion of a new study published on June 27Thursday in an open access journal PLOS Biology by Jaejoong Kim and Dean Mobbs of the California Institute of Technology in the US and colleagues.
Previous animal studies have suggested that the hypothalamus is critical in switching between behaviors, but it was unclear whether this is the case in humans. Studying the brain region in humans is challenging because of the small size of the hypothalamus; several of its subregions are below the resolution of typical functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
In a new study, researchers developed artificial intelligence-based approaches to optimize and analyze fMRI brain scans of 21 healthy individuals, taken over four-hour periods while the humans engaged in hunt-and-flight survival within the fMRI scanner. Participants had to control an avatar, switching between hunting prey and running away from a predator.
The researchers created a computational model to explain the differences in movement patterns that characterized hunting behavior compared to escape behavior. They then analyzed how changes in movements were associated with subtle changes in hypothalamic activity.
Using this approach, the team found that patterns of neural activity in the hypothalamus, as well as in nearby brain regions that are directly connected to the hypothalamus, are associated with behavioral change—at least for survival behavior.
Additionally, the strength of this signaling from the hypothalamus could predict how well someone would do in a subsequent survival task. While the association was observed for switching between hunting and fleeing, it was not observed for switching between other behaviors.
The authors concluded that the hypothalamus plays a key role in how the human brain switches and coordinates survival behavior—a function that is important and evolutionarily advantageous.
The authors add: “The new research demonstrates the essential role of the human hypothalamus in switching between survival modes such as hunting and fleeing, using advanced imaging and computational modeling methods.
“This research also reveals how the hypothalamus interacts with other areas of the brain to coordinate these survival strategies.”
About this news from neuroscience research
Author: Claire Turner
Source: PLOS
Contact: Claire Turner – PLOS
Picture: Image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: The research appears in PLOS Biology