Interactions in the brain which enable us to pay attention to some of the things we see while barely noticing others have been discovered in research at the University of Melbourne.

The findings are the first to show the complex interactions between two different areas of the brain when an object catches our eye. They were published in the international journal Science last week.

The study was conducted by Dr Yuri Saalmann and Associate Professor Trichur Vidyasagar (Optometry and Vision Sciences), and Dr Ivan Pigarev, a visiting scientist from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Associate Professor Vidyasagar says knowing how different parts of the brain work to influence attention could ultimately lead to a better understanding of conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, dyslexia or schizophrenia.

It could also lead to strategies which could prevent car and work place accidents caused by a loss of attention.

Associate Professor Vidyasagar and his colleagues found that a higher brain area in the macaque, known as the lateral intraparietal cortex – which controls attention – stimulates activity in a lower area called the medial temporal area, which influences the processing of visual information.

“Attention is necessary for all the things we do but it is not efficient or possible for us to process every item in our sensory environment,” Associate Professor Vidyasagar says.

“So the brain allocates attention based upon a set of priorities that are valid for that moment and focuses upon specific objects or features.

“Our research has found how the higher brain region we studied acts as a master controller of our attention.

“It acts very much as a news editor who receives a large number of media alerts and has to decide where to send a reporter, and has to keep making such decisions all day.

“We have found that this brain area controls attention mainly by synchronising the activities of its own nerve cells with those in the early parts of the visual pathway.

“This interaction between the two areas helps to select those signals from the visual world which should be processed further,” he says.