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Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The neurobiology of intuition and the science that studies it show us that its application is more important today than ever. In a world that is sometimes chaotic and complex, knowing how to listen to your inner voice can help you make the right decisions.
The neurobiology of intuition exists and reveals a really interesting aspect: we make most decisions based on so-called biases. After all, it is that inner voice that is in touch with our identity and the essence of everything experienced and felt. By giving space to our intuitive part, we facilitate a tool of great value.
Let's face it, intuition often opens up the unseen world to us, putting us in touch with a side of ourselves that operates in the deepest recesses of the unconscious. Sometimes it seems so foreign to us, that it is not uncommon to think of this dimension as something not very scientific, not very logical and therefore belongs more to the mystical realm. However, it is wrong to think so.
Intuition is our sixth sense and, as such, this dimension draws on extensive scientific literature. We find really interesting books, like 'Education of Intuition', by Robin M. Hogarth or 'Intuitive Intelligence', by Malcolm Gladwell. In these works, as in others, we are reminded of the importance of this resource, which helps us integrate analytical thinking.
Some medical researchers such as Jonas Salk, known for developing the polio vaccine, wrote an interesting work in 1983 titled 'Union of Intuition and Reason' in which he discussed the need to keep our sixth sense in mind in our daily life. We all need that inner voice to make the right decisions.
What does the neurobiology of intuition tell us?
The neurobiology of intuition tells us that these mental processes do not come from the human imagination. They actually have a neurological root. It was Dr. Keiji Tanaka from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, who completed an interesting study in search of answers to how the sixth sense is articulated at the level of the brain.
To achieve this, he used skilled shogi players who acted as test subjects. It is a strategy game very similar to the game of chess, in which the most skilled people brilliantly use their intuition to make extraordinary moves. Dr. Tanaka also performed a series of MRIs on this group of people to verify which areas of the brain were activated to a greater extent.
In the context of the neurobiology of intuition, it was noticed that the area that lit up the most was called the precuneus. This is a small part of the superior parietal lobe which, moreover, is located exactly between the two cerebral hemispheres.
Furthermore, the precuneus is associated with episodic memory, visual-spatial processing and, very interestingly, with our consciousness.
Another interesting area that is activated when we use these more intuitive responses is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The latter is a really relevant structure. The reason? It contains information about past rewards, as well as the weight of mistakes suffered or committed that we must avoid in order not to suffer unpleasant consequences.
It was the famous neuroscientist Antonio Damasio who defined the importance of this field in our decisions. The most interesting aspect is that it prompts us to have reactions based on emotions. Let's take an example: we meet a person at a party and then he invites us to his house.
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex can make quick analyzes based on past experiences. It may happen that the character, the appearance, the way of expression of this person promote a lack of trust in us, because it reminds us of another person with whom things did not end well.
This structure will cause an alert reaction. This will be the way in which the voice of intuition will appear in our conscious part. Now, once we hear that inner voice, we have two options: listen to it or subject that feeling to the filter of more analytical thought, to make a more scrupulous assessment.
Scientific studies on the neurobiology of intuition also tell us about the caudate nucleus. This structure is part of the basal ganglia, areas associated with learning processes, our habits and more automatic behaviors.
Therefore, the caudate nucleus stimulates that sixth sense impulse to help us make quick and almost automatic decisions based on previous experience and learning.
In this way – and as can be concluded from all these data – there is little room to doubt that the aforementioned processes are the result of pure imagination or chance. Intuition is not just made up of neuronal connections; it starts from our experience, feeds on the core of our personality and on that box that is the unconscious, on which the core of our being rests.
To talk about premonitions is not to talk about pseudoscience: in reality you are using that mechanism that has always defined the human being, regardless of gender or culture. Let's always listen to that inner voice by integrating it with analytical thinking.
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