Doing two things at once courts disaster, as multitasking requires outer cortical brain regions to rapidly communicate with each other. The speed of this information exchange limits multitasking capability yet can improve with practice. But that’s not the whole story: multitasking also depends on the striatum, a previously overlooked region deep inside the brain.

Garner et al. compared the brain activity of 100 healthy adults before and after a week of multitasking practice. The participants completed two different tasks, first separately and then at the same time. The putamen — a brain region in the striatum involved in habitual behavior — and two cortical regions were activated by the tasks separately and increased activity during multitasking. After testing a variety of potential models, the research team found that multitasking ability hinged on how effectively the putamen could exchange information with the cortical areas. A week of practice improved the participant’s task performance in concert with an increase in communication rates between the putamen and the cortex.

Journal of Neuroscience and Clinical Research welcomes submissions with in the field of Neurology, Neurophysiology, Neuroscience, Nervous System, etc. Unsolicited manuscripts including research articles, reviews, commentaries, opinion articles, short communications, editorials, Letter to Editor, and others will also be considered for publication and should be submitted either online or through the mail.

Manuscripts with relevance to the scope can be submitted to our Email: neurosci@eclinicalsci.com or neurology@peerjournal.org or Online Submission at Neuroscience

Author Information: Complete names and affiliation of all authors, including contact details of corresponding author (Telephone, Fax and E-mail address).

Thanks and Regards,
Peter K
Editorial Assistant
Journal of Neuroscience and Clinical Research