Georgia Tech study finds brain's 'anticipation' signal actually tracks elapsed time, not future events

A Georgia Tech study finds that gradual brain activity increases long read as a sign of prediction actually track how much time has passed since the last event, not what is about to happen. The finding, from the lab of assistant professor Farzaneh Najafi, was published in Science Advances.

Researchers in Farzaneh Najafi’s Georgia Tech lab studied neural ramps, gradual buildups of brain activity before a stimulus that scientists have long treated as a sign of prediction. Working with mice, the team found that this ramping activity looked the same whether events were predictable or not, and it showed up even in mice that had never seen the stimuli before, leading the researchers to conclude the signals track elapsed time rather than anticipate what comes next. Najafi says the result does not rule out predictive processing in the brain generally, but argues these particular signals are not it.

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The study is a reminder that basic neuroscience research happening at Georgia’s own universities can overturn decades of assumptions, one of many reasons to follow local science coverage closely.