The human brain can detect the Earth's magnetic field

A team of scientists has discovered that the human brain is capable of detecting the Earth's magnetic field, challenging previous studies.

The team, from the California Institute of Technology in the United States, think humans were once able to detect the Earth's magnetic field and use it for navigation purposes, like many living beings, but eventually lost that competence, the Sputnik News Agency reported.

The discovery shows that humans have not entirely lost the mechanism that allows them to orient themselves with the help of the magnetic field.

The team, including Shinsuke Shimojo, a professor at the university, discovered that the mechanism behind the ability to detect magnetic fields lies in the recently discovered ability of brain cells to form ferromagnetic magnetite nanocrystals.

Such crystals, which are also found in many organisms, function essentially as micro-magnets. Although the nature of their functions in cells has been little studied so far, they can theoretically be used to track the evolution of the Earth's magnetosphere, they said.

To better understand, the researchers placed the small group of participants on a simple chair inside a Faraday cage, which filtered all the external magnetic fields, then used the coils installed in the cage to generate an artificially controlled magnetic field.

Although the participants felt nothing, their brain, connected to an electroencephalography (EEG) device, clearly responded when the researchers altered the orientation of the artificial field, the report said.

Their brains filtered "irrelevant" information on the spot, Shimojo said.

The brain also ignored magnetic fields, which were at least 25% more powerful than those generated by the Earth, which means that various electronic devices generating such fields can not affect brain functions, he noted. .