Latest news with #brainActivity
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
ChatGPT could be silently rewiring your brain as experts urge caution for long-term use
Using ChatGPT on a long-term basis could have negative effects on brain function. That's according to a study led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which found that using a large language model (LLM) to write multiple essays over a four-month period could hamper cognitive abilities. In the study, 54 participants were divided into three groups. Woman Says Chatgpt Saved Her Life By Helping Detect Cancer, Which Doctors Missed One group used ChatGPT, an LLM product made by OpenAI, to write an essay. The second group used only a search engine, and the third group used only their own brains, according to a press release from MIT. Read On The Fox News App The participants underwent three sessions where they completed the same assignment. Then, in the fourth session, the LLM group was asked to write an essay without any tools, and the "brain-only" group was asked to use an LLM for assistance. During each session, the researchers recorded the participants' brain activity using an EEG monitor to assess their "cognitive engagement and cognitive load" and to determine their neural activity, the release stated. Brain Implant Breakthrough Allows Paralyzed Patients To 'Speak' With Their Thoughts The participants also provided their own individual feedback during interviews. Human teachers and an artificial intelligence agent scored the assessments. "EEG analysis presented robust evidence that LLM, search engine and brain-only groups had significantly different neural connectivity patterns, reflecting divergent cognitive strategies," the researchers wrote. Participants showed less brain connectivity when they used the tools to help write their essays, the study found. "The brain‑only group exhibited the strongest, widest‑ranging networks; the search engine group showed intermediate engagement; and LLM assistance elicited the weakest overall coupling," the researchers wrote. In the fourth session, the participants who switched from LLM to brain-only showed "weaker neural connectivity" and less cognitive engagement. The LLM group also had less ability to recall information from the essays they had just written. Those who switched from brain-only to LLM had "higher memory recall" and greater cognitive engagement. Based on these findings, the researchers said there could be a "possible decrease in learning skills" among LLM users. "The use of LLM had a measurable impact on our participants, and while the benefits were initially apparent, as we demonstrated over the course of four sessions … the LLM group's participants performed worse than their counterparts in the brain-only group at all levels: neural, linguistic [and] scoring," they wrote. The findings have been uploaded to Arxiv, a preprint service, but have not yet been peer-reviewed, as the researchers noted that "all conclusions are to be treated with caution and as preliminary." There were also a limited number of participants who were all from the same geographical area. Ai Tool Scans Faces To Predict Biological Age And Cancer Survival "For future work, it will be important to include a larger number of participants coming from diverse backgrounds, like professionals in different areas and age groups, as well as ensure that the study is more gender-balanced," the researchers noted. Only ChatGPT was used in the study; future research could incorporate other LLMs. The EEG technology used to analyze brain connectivity could also have some limitations, as the researchers shared plans to use fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) in future studies. "Our findings are context-dependent and are focused on writing an essay in an educational setting and may not generalize across tasks," they also stated. "Future studies should also consider exploring longitudinal impacts of tool usage on memory retention, creativity and writing fluency." Dr. Harvey Castro, an ER physician and "AI futurist" based in Texas, said he sees this study as a "neuro-wake-up call," especially for younger brains. "ChatGPT can make you 60% faster, but that speed comes at the price of neuro-engagement," Castro, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. "Brain connectivity collapses from 79 neural links to just 42, and 83% of users can't quote their own essays minutes later. Neuroplasticity research tells us developing brains will feel this hit hardest." In emergency medicine, Castro said, doctors call this "failure to encode." "The brain isn't processing and storing information," he said. "When neural connectivity drops by nearly half, we're looking at what researchers call 'cognitive debt.'" For medical students, an inability to encode and recall information under pressure could have serious implications for clinical decision-making, Castro noted. Click Here To Sign Up For Our Health Newsletter "The same neural networks that consolidate essay information are involved in diagnostic reasoning," he said. Using LLMs for extended periods can be convenient, but could cause cognitive muscles to "atrophy" over time, the expert cautioned. There was one encouraging finding, however. "When people with strong foundational skills later used ChatGPT, they showed enhanced connectivity," Castro said. "The key isn't avoiding AI — it's building cognitive strength first." In education, he emphasized the need for periods of "AI-free cognitive development." For more Health articles, visit "Sometimes you act on preliminary data when the stakes are high enough, and an entire generation's brain development is high stakes." Fox News Digital reached out to OpenAI for article source: ChatGPT could be silently rewiring your brain as experts urge caution for long-term use
Gizmodo
18-05-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
This Is What Your Brain Looks Like When You Solve a Problem
We've all had the aha moment, when the solution to a problem is suddenly obvious. In cartoons, that eureka feeling is usually depicted as a lightbulb floating above a character's head—which is not that far off from what actually takes place in the brain during these moments. Researchers have revealed that epiphanies physically reshape brain activity. What's more, they discovered that people remember epiphanies better than solutions reached through a more methodical approach. These results could have important implications for how instructors approach teaching in classrooms. 'If you have an 'aha! moment' while learning something, it almost doubles your memory,' Roberto Cabeza, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke, said in a university statement. 'There are few memory effects that are as powerful as this.' Cabeza is senior author of a study published earlier this month in the journal Nature Communications. As study participants solved brain teasers, he and his colleagues recorded their brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technique that measures changes in blood flow associated with brain activity. The brain teasers were visual fill-in-the-blank puzzles that revealed a previously hidden picture once participants completed the image. While such an activity might seem childish, this small discovery 'produces the same type of characteristics that exist in more important insight events,' Cabeza explained. Once participants thought they'd solved a puzzle, the team asked them how certain they were of their solution, and whether they'd reached the solution suddenly (in an aha moment) or worked it out more intentionally. Overall, the researchers noted that participants who reported epiphanies remembered their solutions significantly better than those who hadn't—and the more certain they were about their flash of insight, the greater the likelihood they'd still recall it five days later. The functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that the epiphanies triggered an explosion of activity in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory. Stronger moments of insight caused stronger bursts of activity. When participants solved the puzzle and finally recognized the secret object, researchers also noted changes in the participants' neuron firing dynamics—especially in regions of the ventral occipito-temporal cortex, which is involved in recognizing visual patterns. Similarly, the more powerful the moment of insight, the greater the changes researchers recorded. 'During these moments of insight, the brain reorganizes how it sees the image,' said Maxi Becker, first author of the study and a cognitive neuroscientist at Humboldt University. Furthermore, the researchers linked more powerful epiphanies with more connectivity between those parts of the brain. 'The different regions communicate with each other more efficiently,' said Cabeza. As such, 'Learning environments that encourage insight could boost long-term memory and understanding,' the researchers wrote in the statement. While in this study the team imaged brain activity before and after participants' 'aha' moment, moving forward they hope to investigate what takes place in between—when the real magic happens.
