• Question: Does the brain have anything to do with reaction time? Eg stopping a ball hitting your face...

    Asked by gandalfthegrey to Fiona, Jane, Joanna, Michelle, William on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Yep! Your eyes see the ball, the brain gets the message and tells your muscles to duck.

    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Yes! The sensory organs (eyes, ears etc.) send signals to the sensory cortex of the brain, and the brain then interprets these signals, and sends signals to the relevant muscles telling them what to do (e.g. duck out of the way of the ball). The time is takes for all these signals to travel is your ‘reaction time’. There is a strong relationship between reaction time and IQ – generally people with higher IQs have better reaction times, and are at reduced risk of developing neurodegeenrative disorders like Alzheimer’s Disease

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hey, good question! Yes several parts of the brain are involved in reaction time but it depends on what the task is. In the example you gave – stopping a ball hitting your face – the motor cortex of the brain would be involved in this. The primary motor cortex is found at the front of the brain in the ‘frontal lobe’.

      If the task was to decide whether a word was actually a word (elephant) or a made-up word (elephud) as fast as possible the language areas of the brain would be involved in this.

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