Resume: The hypothalamus helps people switch between survival behaviors such as hunting and escape. Researchers used AI-enhanced fMRI scans to analyze brain activity in 21 participants playing a survival game.
They found several hypothalamic activity patterns associated with behavioral change. This discovery highlights the crucial role of the hypothalamus in survival strategies.
Key Facts:
- Role of the hypothalamus: Crucial for switching between hunting and escape behavior.
- AI and fMRI: Researchers used AI-enhanced fMRI scans to study brain activity.
- Survival strategies: Hypothalamic activity predicts performance on survival tasks.
Source: PLOS
The hypothalamus is a small part of the human brain typically associated with regulating body temperature, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and sleep. But it also plays another important role: helping the brain and body switch between different and opposing survival behaviors, such as hunting prey and escaping predators.
That is the conclusion of a new study published on June 27e in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Jaejoong Kim and Dean Mobbs from the California Institute of Technology, USA, and colleagues.
Previous animal studies have suggested that the hypothalamus is crucial in switching between behaviors, but it is unclear whether this is also the case in humans. Studying the brain region in humans is challenging because of the small size of the hypothalamus; several subregions have a resolution lower than that of typical functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans.
In the new study, researchers developed artificial intelligence-based approaches to optimize and analyze fMRI scans of the brains of 21 healthy individuals, taken over four-hour periods while people were engaged in a hunt-and-escape game in the fMRI scanner. Participants had to control an avatar, switching between hunting prey and escaping a predator.
The researchers built a computational model to explain the differences in movement patterns that characterized hunting behavior compared to escape behavior. They then analyzed how changes in movement were related to subtle changes in hypothalamic activity.
Using this approach, the team found that patterns of neural activity in the hypothalamus, as well as nearby brain areas directly connected to the hypothalamus, are associated with behavioral change – at least for survival behavior.
Furthermore, the strength of this hypothalamic signaling could predict how well someone would perform in their next survival task. While the association was seen for switching between hunting and escape behaviors, it was not seen for switching between other behaviors.
The authors conclude that the hypothalamus plays a key role in how the human brain switches between and coordinates survival behaviors – a function that is important and evolutionarily advantageous.
The authors add: ‘New research demonstrates the crucial role of the human hypothalamus in switching between survival behaviours such as hunting and escape, using advanced imaging and computer modelling methods.
“This research also reveals how the hypothalamus works with other brain regions to coordinate these survival strategies.”
About this neuroscience research news
Author: Claire Turner
Source: PLOS
Contact: Claire Turner – PLOS
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: The research will appear in PLOS Biology