Research into the eye-brain connection has garnered much interest over the past decade. New brain imaging science has opened a new world of understanding about how we process information. Here we present and comment on a smattering of such research as it pertains to Rapid Eye Technology.
- Articles & Papers
- Abstracts
- Books
- In the News
- “Blinking Causes Brain To Go Off-Line” Research from Japan suggests that blinking does more than stop our eyes drying out: it is an active process that causes the brain to go off-line, into a more reflective mode, before giving renewed attention.
- “Research Reveals That The Eyes Give Away More Than We Might Think” Our eyes don’t just take in the world around us, they can also reflect our emotional state, influence our memories, and provide clues about the way we think. Here is some of the latest research from the journals Psychological Science and Current Directions in Psychological Science in which scientists show there’s much more to the eyes than people might think.
- “Evidence for grid cells in a human memory network” – Christian F. Doeller, Caswell Barry & Neil Burgess, University College London. Does the RET Wand Pattern match a pattern found in the hippocampus? University College London researchers have discovered that the brain lays out a grid of cells that represent a map of spacial orientations and locations in space. In an interesting coincidence, the Rapid Eye Technology (RET) eye directing device (called a wand) is moved in a hexagonal 3D pattern just in front of the face – a pattern that due to its spacial character may be very familiar to the aforementioned part of the brain. Further, the signals flowing through the brain from eyes to visual cortex stop off for an emotional load at the hypothalamus which is attached to the memory-gating hippocampus – the seat of this honeycomb-like spacial mapping grid.
- “Dream Sleep Eases Painful Memories” This study investigates REM and emotional memories (particularly PTSD). “During REM sleep, memories are being reactivated, put in perspective and connected and integrated, but in a state where stress neurochemicals are beneficially suppressed.” (van der Helm, 2011)