Déjà vu
- erudite .
- Apr 28, 2022
- 2 min read
By Sanam Marjan
Déjà vu is the French word for ‘already seen.’
It is a feeling of familiarity with the metacognitive recognition that these feelings are misplaced.
The conflict between the sensation of familiarity and the awareness that you are being tricked is what makes the feeling unique.
The neuroscientific reason behind Déjà vu
Déjà vu is a memory illusion, which occurs at the frontal region of the brain attempting to correct an incorrect memory. It shows that fact-checking regions in the brain are working well, preventing the misremembering of events.
The activity in the brain of what happens during déjà vu is not confirmed yet, but all the theories suggest déjà vu occurs when other areas of the brain provide the brain's frontal regions signals that a past experience is repeating itself.
Following this event, the frontal decision-making areas of the brain check to see whether or not this signal is homogeneous with what is possible. Asking to confirm ‘Have I been here before?’ If we have been to that place before, our brain would try harder to retrieve memories connecting to the déjà vu. Déjà vu realisation may occur if memories are not found.
People more likely to get Déjà vu
A healthy person is likely to experience déjà vu once a month on average. But there are factors which could increase the chances of it.
For instance, stress and tiredness increase the chances of it, as the internal neuron system does not have the chance to recuperate and regulate itself. This causes the neuron firing to be off hence resulting in déjà vu.
Brain regions that signal familiarity, contain neurons with dopaminergic action occurring in it. Meaning dopamine is involved which could justify the elevated reports of déjà vu when dopaminergic drugs are consumed.
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