In another application, scientists selectively stimulated brain cells in animal models of Parkinson's disease, a disease that involves the disruption of information-processing in the brain.

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Such results suggest there may be some higher processing of information going on, and that areas of the brain important for processing complex stimuli are still functioning, said Dr. Keith L. Black, chairman and professor in the department of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, who is not involved in Sharon's care.

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Schizophrenia is another disorder that involves information processing issues in the brain.

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Researchers once assumed that the cortex, the information-processing hub of the brain, was always destroyed in vegetative patients.

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Dr Most thinks that the explanation for this temporary blindness is that there is an information-processing bottleneck in the brain when it is presented with important stimuli.

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"If nanotechnology maintains its current pace of development, it will give birth to a computer that has the information processing capacity equivalent to every human brain combined by 2060, " he was quoted as saying in a local newspaper.

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All participants showed increased activity in the frontal lobes of the brain when the information given was better than expected, indicating active processing of the information to recalculate an estimate.

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When your brain detects a discrepancy, it reacts by throwing resources at it: attention, effort, deeper processing of information, and willpower.

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