The use of touch screens of smartphones changes the way thumbs and brain work together, resulting in increased brain activity, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Current Biology .
The advent of touch screens in countless devices, eg smartphones, has caused users to develop new skills with the fingers, especially the thumb, which are the most used in a ‘smartphone’. Arko Professor Ghosh led a team of Swiss Universities of Zurich and Fribourg, realizing that the obsession with the use of smartphones could give them the opportunity to analyze the daily brain plasticity and understand how it shapes everyday life.
“The digital technology we use in our daily life molds the sensory processing of our brains in a proportion that surprised us,” said the doctor. Each region of the body has a specific area on the emotional center of the brain where information is processed, which is flexible and may change.
So, the researchers studied the activation of the sensorimotor cortex, which is activated with the movement of the fingers. To do EEGs performed measuring the activity of cortical regions of the brain in 37 right-handed people. Thanks to the EEG recorded the brain response when smartphone users touched the screen with the thumb, index and middle, to then compare it to the people who continue to use mobile old traditional keyboards.
The data revealed that electrical activity in the brain of users “smartphone” increased by touching the tips of three fingers above. Furthermore, the amount of activity of the cerebral cortex associated with thumb and forefinger was directly proportional to the amount of time the smartphone is used.
The study authors consider sensory processing in the cortex brain “is continuously remodeled by personal digital technology.”
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