An invisible map of the mind has been created: Subconsciously perceived images leave a stronger mark on the brain than thought.

While studying the visual perception processes of gibbons, University of California Berkeley researchers detected a surprising neural vibration in the brain that repeats 15 times per second. The study, published on the bioRxiv platform, revealed that conscious perception and suppressed unconscious stimuli are processed with equal strength in the brain.

Within the scope of the research, a "binocular competition" experiment (the competition between two eyes to perceive different images) was applied to monkeys (Macaca mulatta) by showing two different face images from two different eyes. In this process, where living things focus on a single moment, as in humans, the inferotemporal and prefrontal cortex regions in the brain, which are responsible for face recognition, were monitored instantly.

In scientific studies to date, it has been assumed that objects that remain invisible or out of awareness leave only a weak neural trace in the brain. However, Tsao and his team documented that suppressed visual signals create an electrical surge that is at least as loud and strong as focused conscious images.

Janis Hesse, one of the co-authors of the study, stated that images can be reconstructed with high fidelity from brain signals, and emphasized that unfocused objects are also processed completely in the mind.

These findings in the field of visual perception and neuronal vibration are one of the questions to which neuroscience seeks an answer: Why do we consciously select one of two images and eliminate the other? He brought up the question again.

Independent neuroscientists from institutions such as UCLA and Ruhr University Bochum appreciate the study's rigorous methods, but say more research is needed to unravel the core mechanism of consciousness. Experts report that by mapping these millisecond-scale neural transitions, cognitive disorders in diseases such as perception disorders, coma states and schizophrenia can be understood at the molecular level in the future.