Scientists have uncovered new details about how the brain’s “information hub” responds to uncertainty, revealing a remarkably flexible system that rapidly changes how it communicates with other brain regions as we make decisions.
Every second of our lives, the human brain sorts through enormous amounts of information. From remembering a driving route and handling daily tasks to making decisions, the brain must continually determine what information matters and how to respond. Researchers at the University of Iowa wanted to better understand how the human brain manages and processes this information and found that it may be more flexible than previously thought.
At the center of this sorting process is an area of the brain known as the frontoparietal cortex. This region supports decision-making and behavioral control and can function as a kind of “information hub” for the brain.
The Study
Using MRI scans, behavioral experiments, and computational modeling, researchers took a deeper look at how the frontoparietal cortex responds when people are uncertain about what they should do next.
“That’s the main contribution,” says Kai Hwang, associate professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the study’s corresponding author, in a statement.
“Our study shows in more detail how the frontoparietal cortex operates — what kind of information it extracts from other systems and how it uses its connectivity pattern to integrate information that is coming in from different areas of the brain,” Hwang adds.
The research team recruited 38 participants between the ages of 18 and 35 and had each person learn associations between combinations of colors, faces, and scenes and particular actions—for example, pressing a button with the index or middle finger of either hand. The researchers then intentionally changed those associations.
When an action or rule changes, the brain has to determine what went wrong.
Did the situation change? Was the information unclear? Or did the person simply make a mistake? This uncertainty allowed researchers to observe how the brain’s “information hub” responds under different circumstances.
“It’s like where other areas of the brain don’t have all the information, so they send what they have to the frontoparietal cortex for guidance,” Hwang explains.
The results from the team’s research suggest the frontoparietal cortex does more than become more active when a task becomes difficult. Instead, the region changes how it communicates with other brain regions. This also depends on what information is needed at different decision-making stages.
Hwang notes, “If they always get it right, they know they’ve made the correct association, but once they start doing it wrong, they will have to guess, ‘Oh, did the context change, or did I not see the color clearly?’ That creates uncertainty.”
Your Brain Has an Air Traffic Controller
Hwang describes the brain’s “information hub” as a system that gathers information from different regions, determines what is relevant, and integrates those signals into a broader picture. One way to think of this function is as an air traffic controller, monitoring incoming information and adjusting communications as circumstances change.
“These are situations where people struggle with regulating their behavior. That, to me, is an integration problem. If that integration function is not working properly, then that could very likely mean they didn’t use the right context to regulate their behavior,” Hwang adds.
The study does not address how neurodiversity might affect this information-sorting process, although the findings could provide a foundation for researchers to investigate that question.
“It remains an open question how neurodiversity might affect frontoparietal integration. It is a very interesting question that, as far as I know, has not been studied directly, so I don’t have a definitive answer. One of our goals in conducting this study is to lay the foundation for future clinical investigations,” Hwang tells The Debrief in an email.
The findings suggest that the frontoparietal cortex can rapidly integrate and update information as circumstances change. Understanding this flexibility could eventually improve researchers’ understanding of neurological and psychiatric conditions involving behavioral regulation and decision-making. In particular, studying these communication patterns could help inform future investigations of conditions such as ADHD and schizophrenia, in which behavioral regulation and the use of contextual information can be impaired.
The new research was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.