Reality vs the Imagined

It sounds a bit like something from the philosophy of Descartes, but researchers have determined which part of the brain is responsible for telling the difference between reality and the imagined. It is a fold at the front of the brain that develops late in pregnancy, and is missing entirely in 27% of people. This discovery leads to some information about the disease schizophrenia. One of aspects of this research is that it also showed that there are more factors in the disease because only about 1% of the population actually has it. Either way, it is one step closer to understanding the relationship between structure and function in the brain. There is still a lot left to understand about the brain works or even malfunctions. With internet communications, there will be more research that can be done. The key brain structure identified by the study is called the paracingulate sulcus (PCS), a fold in part of the prefrontal cortex, the region that is involved with planning, thought and judgment. The size of the PCS varies greatly in normal people, and some people a PCS only on one side of their brain, while others have one on both. Compared to the quarter or so of healthy people who are completely missing the PCS, 44% of people with schizophrenia do not have it, suggesting that its absence could play a role in the disease.