Scientists have discovered where a person has a conscience
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
A new research project has shown that in the human brain there are sites that are responsible for assessing life situations, i.e. The so-called conscience of man. The author of the project noted that certain areas in the brain, which are responsible for conscience, are activated when a person faces in life with any choice or evaluates an action (good or bad). The results of their work scientists published in one of the scientific journals.
Experts suggest that the clot of tissue in the brain, which they managed to detect, helps a person to choose between "good" and "bad." Experts believe that the site identified by them is also responsible for strategic planning. Thanks to this site, a person is able to solve several tasks, as well as draw conclusions from errors and not make them in the future.
During their studies, scientists from Oxford studied the human brain, which allowed them to "see" part of the brain, which is responsible for manifesting conscience.
In the experiment of scientists participated 25 people (both men and women). Specialists wanted to determine whether a conscience has a specific location or is a purely psychological term.
All volunteers underwent magnetic resonance imaging, after which a group of researchers analyzed data on the frontal zones of the human brain.
Previous studies have shown that conscience is inherent only in humans, in animals such a phenomenon is simply absent.
During the analysis of the data, scientists compared the brains of volunteers to the brains of monkeys, who also performed a tomography, which allowed them to conclude that there are significant differences in the prefrontal area.
It is in this part of the brain that there is a conscience that distinguishes man from animals, said the head of the research project. After lengthy studies, experts determined that in primates and humans, the brain is almost identical, except for the area that is responsible for conscience.
By convention, the brain under investigation was divided into 12 parts, of which 11 parts in man and monkey were completely identical, but the person had "side frontal poles", which were not found in primates. Experts emphasize that the lateral frontal poles they discovered are a completely unique part of the human brain, which is not found in any other mammal.
The region in the brain that distinguishes a human from all animals has the appearance of a small clump of globular tissue, through which a person is able to evaluate good or bad deeds. In other words, thanks to this part of the brain, a person can analyze situations and learn not only on their own, but also on other people's mistakes. The human brain has two frontal poles, which diverge in different directions in the region behind the eyebrows.
Experts believe that it is this part that helps a person to make the right choice, as well as causes so-called "remorse", joy or bitterness from the deed, regret from an unrealized or missed chance.
[