Neurobiology Of Intuition: Premonitions

The neurobiology of intuition exists and reveals a really interesting aspect: we make most of our decisions based on so-called presentiments. After all, it is about that inner voice that is in contact with our identity and with the essence of everything experienced, felt and tried. By giving space to our intuitive side, we facilitate a tool of great value.

Let’s face it, intuition often opens up worlds that are otherwise invisible, puts us in contact with a side of ourselves that operates in the deepest depths of the subconscious. Sometimes it is so alien to us that it is not uncommon to think of this dimension as something unscientific, not very logical and therefore more belonging to the mystical sphere. However, believing this is a mistake.

Intuition is our sixth sense and, as such, this dimension relies on a large scientific literature. We find very interesting books, like Educating Intuition (Educating intuition) , Robin M. Hogarth. o Intuitive intelligence , by Malcolm Gladwell. In these works, as in others that collect conflicting data, we are reminded of the importance of this resource, which helps us to integrate analytical thinking.

Several medical researchers such as Jonas Salk, known for developing the polio vaccine, wrote an interesting work in 1983, entitled Merging of Intuition and Reason , in which he dealt with the need to keep in mind our sixth sense in our daily life. We all need that inner voice to make the right decisions. 

What does the neurobiology of intuition tell us?

The neurobiology of intuition tells us that these mental processes do not come from the human imagination. They actually have a neurological root. It was Dr. Keiji Tanaka of the RIKEN Institute of Brain Sciences who carried out an interesting study in search of the answers on how the sixth sense is articulated in the brain.

To do this, he used skilled shogi players who acted as champion subjects. It is a strategy game very similar to the game of chess, in which the most skilled people brilliantly resort to intuition to make incredible moves. Dr. Tanaka also performed a series of MRI scans on this group of people to check which brain areas were activated the most.

The precuneo

In the context of the neurobiology of intuition, it could be seen that the area that was the most illuminated was the precuneus. It is a small part of the superior parietal lobe which, moreover, is located right between the two cerebral hemispheres.

The precuneus is also associated with episodic memory, the visuospatial process and, what is really interesting, our consciousness. 

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex and its role in the neurobiology of intuition

Another interesting area that becomes active when we make use of these more intuitive responses is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The latter is a really relevant structure. The reason? It contains information regarding past rewards, as well as the weight of mistakes we have suffered or made and which we should avoid in order not to suffer unpleasant consequences.

It was the famous neuroscientist Antonio Damasio who determined the importance of this area in our decisions. The most interesting aspect is that it prompts us to emit responses based on emotions. Let’s take an example: we meet a person at a party and then he invites us to go to his house.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex can make a quick analysis based on past experience. It may be that this person’s character, appearance, way of expressing themselves stimulate a lack of trust in us, because it reminds us of another person with whom it did not end well.

This structure will give rise to an alert response, to put us a little to attention. This will be how the voice of intuition will manifest itself in our conscious part. Now, once we hear that inner voice, we have two options: listen to it, or subject that feeling to the filter of more analytical thinking to make a more scrupulous evaluation.

The caudate nucleus

Scientific studies on the neurobiology of intuition also tell us about the caudate nucleus. This structure is part of the basal ganglia, areas associated with learning processes, our habits and more automatic behaviors.

The caudate nucleus, therefore, stimulates that impulse to the sixth sense to help us make quick and almost automatic decisions based on experience and previous teachings.

In this way – and as can be deduced from all these data – there is little room to suspect that the aforementioned processes are the result of pure imagination or chance. Intuition is not just made up of neuronal connections; starts from our experience, it feeds on the essence of our personality and on that ark which is the subconscious, on which the essence of our being lies.

Speaking of presentiments is not speaking of pseudoscience: in reality it is making use of that mechanism that has always defined the human being, regardless of gender or culture. Let’s think about it, let’s always listen to that inner voice by integrating it with analytical thinking.