| | By Nick Farrell in Rome @ Tuesday, March 24, 2009 6:35 AM
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| | Boffins have found out that your brain warns that you are about to make a cock-up spilt seconds before you do it.
 Those who drop coffee, or make a similar error due to a lack of attention can be assured that their brain knew they were going to do it and sits there immediately afterwards and tells you “I told you so.”
Boffins and boffinettes from the University of California, Davis, in collaboration with the Donders Institute in the Netherlands, have found a distinct electric signature in the brain which warn that such an error is about to be made.
They think it could be the key to warning people like air traffic control operators that their attention is flagging and they might be about to land a 747 in the same place as a 737.
It could also help children cope with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Top boffin Ali Mazaheri, told PysOrg he was jolly interested in the state of the brain before it started making stuff ups because it can warn of impending doom.
He recruited 14 students who recorded their brain activity using Magnetoencephalography while they were doing something which required lots of concentration. Mazaheri's team found that before these errors were committed, brain waves in two regions were stronger than when the subjects correctly refrained from making mistakes.
When a mistake is about to be made the alpha wave activity was about 25 per cent stronger, and in the middle region, which is similar to what happens when the brain runs in neutral. Once a mistake has been made, the brain fires up the frontal lobes and pushes alpha activity to the back of the brain.
The brain effectively says “wake up and concentrate”. X
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