Our understanding of brain activity has traditionally been
linked to brain areas – when we speak, the speech area of the brain is active.
New research by an international team of psychologists led by David Alexander
and Cees van Leeuwen (Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics) shows that this view
may be overly rigid. The entire cortex, not just the area responsible for a
certain function, is activated when a given task is initiated. Furthermore,
activity occurs in a pattern: waves of activity roll from one side of the brain
to the other.