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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Uncovering the mysteries of the brain
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:03
	Publish Date:		2016-07-05 19:00:00
	Description:		The brain is a mysterious organ, but it might not be as unpredictable as scientists once thought. Alexander Huth of the University of California, Berkeley recently ran an experiment measuring the brain activity of subjects while they listened to podcasts. Huth expected the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for some higher-order functions like personality and decision making, to register words in a mish mash of locations. Instead, the brain region seemed to respond in a very structured manner, displaying distinct patches of activity for similar words. "One thing I was honestly surprised by was the degree of involvement in the prefrontal context. Sure, neuroscientists see things in the prefrontal cortex, but usually in specific areas that are very tied to language production and language comprehension. We saw responses everywhere. We also saw organization everywhere." His next steps will involve building more of these connections. "One thing I really want to do now is look at the relationship between the visual representations and the linguistic representations, seeing a thing and hearing the word for that thing. So sort of, where do these two things collide?"
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