I am Ahmed Ibrahim Zaher, 2nd Year PhD Graduate student, University of Toyama, Graduate school of Innovative Life Science, Department of Biochemistry.
Nowadays, Mental disorders prevalence is highly increasing as around 20% of the world population are suffering from it. Until now, there is no medication to cure any of the mental disorders.
My research project is addressing the higher-order cognition and brain ability for decision-making and drawing conclusions.
Idling, rest or sleep which is the main difference between human and robots, has been causally related to facilitate insight and creative problem-solving. The most famous example of “Archimedes” when he got a `EUREKA` moment upon resting to discover the law of buoyancy. However, it is still unclear how and when the sub-conscious mind creates novel ideas.
The aim of the project is to identify how idling helps in gaining creative insight and problem solving by using two advanced techniques:
1) Optogenetics, which assist to identify the crucial brain region for gaining insight.
2) Calcium imaging, using a miniaturized microscope on mouse head during online behavior which allow to identify the exact neuronal brain mechanism underlying this phenomenon.
This project could be applied in two aspects. First, it can be used to develop new drugs for people with intellectual disabilities who suffers from difficulty in gaining insight, taking decisions and drawing conclusions.
Second, it can open a new era by identifying the basis for creative thinking which can be used in the future in artificial intelligence.