***～会飞的蝎子～学习宁静致远

As people spend increasing amounts of time on Facebook, sending rapid text messages and surfing the Internet, it has become necessary to catch a glimpse of how the brain may be adapting to our new technology-driven world.

With the use of brain imaging technology, UCLA scientists uncovered that searching on Google triggers key centers for decision-making and complex reasoning in the brains, leading to possible improvements in brain function.

“When people are on the Internet, there is always something new,” said principle investigator Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior at UCLA.

“The Web is always taking our brain to the next level and constantly providing it with exercise.”

In this cutting-edge new study, two groups of middle-aged participants were recruited, half of whom had no experience with the Internet and the other half well versed with it.

The participants performed Internet searches as well as a simple reading task, all while in an fMRI scanning machine, which recorded brain activity patterns while participants performed the tasks.

As expected, the reading task caused the same type of brain activation in both groups, termed the Web-savvy and Web-naive, Small said.

The dramatic finding came when comparing the brain activation patterns between groups while they conducted Internet searches.

The Web-savvy group showed new regions bursting with activity during this task in the frontal and temporal areas of the brain, which are responsible for the control of higher order decision making and complex reasoning, Small said.

However, this intense over-activation of the entire brain, especially in higher order thinking areas, only appears within the Web-savvy group who had prior experience with the Internet.

The Web-savvy demonstrated more than twice as much brain activation when searching Google compared to the Web-naive.

Small said this discrepancy may be due to the Web-naive group not fully grasping and understanding the task since they did not have experience using the Internet.

This study shows that the Internet is a powerful exercise machine for the brain and can be responsible for driving a physical evolution, improving the efficiency of the way humans think.

In addition, the findings also showed that it is never too late to learn and work out the muscles of the brain.

The group lacking in previous Internet experience was given time to practice surfing the Web.

After only five days, they began to show an increase in activity in those same frontal brain regions responsible for higher order thinking.

In time, their brains would follow the same activation patterns as the Web-savvy, according to the most recent issue of the Scientific American Mind.

The brain is extraordinarily plastic and it is never too late for it to learn new tasks, Small said.

Small’s research shows that the brain is reaching its highest potential as demonstrated by the amazing power the younger generations today show in efficiently multi-tasking.

The brains of individuals in their 20s and younger who were born into a world of technology may have brains that are already functionally different from the older generations, Small said.

The digital evolution is driving rapid progress for humans and for technology, with I.Q. scores steadily increasing along with growths in technology, demonstrating the ability, according to Scientific American Mind.

However, though technology enhances and sharpens the cognitive abilities of the brain, human interactions and face-to-face contacts are minimized.

“This generation of digital natives needs to step back and concentrate more on face-to-face contacts,” Small said.

“There needs to be a balance in terms of when to pick up the phone and when to send an e-mail.”

As things move quickly and communication becomes more advanced, Small emphasizes the need to stay connected with humanity since the importance of face-to-face contact, allowing the mind to evolve instead of just becoming another computer, cannot be replaced.