What happens to our brain when we “hear” our thoughts?

Have you ever had a fantastic conversation in your head? Have you ever imagined arguing with someone else and hearing their voice? What happens to our brain when this internal monologue is made? How do you “listen” to your thoughts?

As it turns out, the brain performs processes when you think of words as when you speak loudly.

Internal monologues are considered an open-minded simulation, said Hélène Loevenbruck, a neurolinguistics researcher and head of the language team at the Laboratory of Psychology and Neuroscience at the French National Research Institute.

As children, we are virtual sponges, absorbing new information from every angle. Children who play alone often have a strong dialogue. At about 5 to 7 years old, that expression becomes internal, Loevenbruck said.

Previous studies have shown that the brain has a similar activity to internal speech as it does to oral speech. When study participants are asked to intentionally “speak” inside their head while on an MRI scan, scientists can see parts of the brain that process auditory information being activated as if they were actually hearing words.

“The areas of the brain that are activated during internal speech are quite similar to those that are activated during oral speech,” Lowenbrook told Live Science. These areas include the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere and the parietal lobe, which help process outward stimulation.

But when you think of something like an imaginary conflict with another person, the brain goes one step further. During this internal conflict, you play two roles: yourself and the person you are arguing with. When you play yourself, you activate the auditory centers on the left side of your brain, Loevenbruck said. But when you change roles internally to play the person you are arguing with, “there is a kind of shift in the activation of the brain area to the right hemisphere,” he continued. Seeing the situation from a different angle, even if it is a perspective you create in your mind, changes the areas of the brain that are activated.

The researchers also observed this phenomenon when participants were asked to imagine a movement, Leovenbruck continued. Dancers, for example, use a different part of their brain to imagine themselves dancing versus someone else dancing, according to a study published in the August 2005 issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex.

However, not all internal monologues are appropriate. Sometimes words or sentences just pop into your mind, unprovoked.

This phenomenon may have something to do with “Default function network” of the brain (DMN), said Robert Chavez, a neuroscientist at the University of Oregon. DMN is a network of regions in the brain that is active when it is not performing a specific process. DMN is believed to be involved with aspects of inner thinking, such as retrieving memories, daydreaming, or feeling something that is happening in your body, such as hunger or thirst.

Much more research is needed to understand how inner thoughts arise spontaneously, Leovenbruck said. When we reach extremes, inner thoughts can become dysfunctional, such as chewing after an uncomfortable or traumatic event, or in mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, in which people hear auditory hallucinations.

Live Science

Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news