Estimated Reading Time: 13–15 minutes

Modern life places extraordinary demands on our attention. From the moment we wake up, our minds are often moving between messages, responsibilities, decisions, unfinished tasks, social media, work, and family concerns. Even when we finally sit down to concentrate on something important, our attention may continue moving as though it is still responding to everything that came before. We read the same paragraph twice, open another browser tab without thinking, reach for the phone, or discover that ten minutes have passed without making meaningful progress. In these moments, it is tempting to assume that we simply lack discipline or need to try harder.

Yet concentration is not purely an act of willpower. Our ability to focus is influenced by sleep, fatigue, emotional state, stress, physical comfort, motivation, environmental stimulation, and the amount of information already competing for our mental resources. This is why forcing ourselves to concentrate sometimes works and sometimes seems to make the problem worse. When the body is exhausted or the nervous system is highly activated, another command to “focus” may simply become another source of pressure.

This broader understanding of attention has increased interest in practices that approach mental clarity through both the mind and the body. Aromatherapy acupressure is one such approach. It combines aromatic stimulation, usually through essential oils, with gentle pressure or massage applied to specific points on the body. Aromatherapy and acupressure have each been investigated separately for outcomes including mood, fatigue, relaxation, alertness, and aspects of cognitive performance. However, research specifically demonstrating that the combined practice reliably improves concentration remains limited.

For that reason, it is more useful to explore aromatherapy acupressure not as a proven cognitive enhancer but as a possible mind-body ritual that may help some people regulate their state before returning to demanding mental work. The important question is not simply whether a particular scent or pressure point can “make you focus.” A more psychologically meaningful question is whether scent, touch, breathing, and intentional pauses can help create conditions in which focused attention becomes easier.

What You Will Learn

• Why concentration depends on physical and emotional state as well as mental effort.

• What research suggests about aromatherapy, alertness, memory, mood, and attention.

• What studies of acupressure tell us about fatigue and alertness.

• How scent and touch can become part of a transition ritual for focused work.

• Why regulating your state may sometimes be more effective than forcing concentration.

• How to experiment with aromatherapy acupressure safely and realistically.

Why Focus Is About More Than Willpower

We often imagine attention as a mental spotlight that we should be able to direct wherever we choose. When that spotlight wanders, we may interpret the problem as laziness, poor discipline, or insufficient motivation. In reality, attention is closely connected to the condition of the whole person. A well-rested mind in a relatively calm body does not approach a difficult task in the same way as a sleep-deprived mind in a tense, overstimulated body.

Consider what happens when you try to work immediately after receiving upsetting news. You may sit at your desk, open the correct document, and look directly at the words on the screen, yet part of your attention remains elsewhere. You may be replaying what happened, imagining what might happen next, or mentally rehearsing a conversation. The problem is not that you have suddenly lost your ability to concentrate. Your cognitive resources are being divided between the task in front of you and emotionally significant information competing for attention.

Fatigue produces a different version of the same problem. After several hours of demanding work, tasks that normally feel straightforward can begin to require disproportionate effort. You may become more vulnerable to distraction, more impatient with complexity, and increasingly drawn toward activities that provide immediate stimulation. This is one reason why people sometimes find themselves scrolling through their phones at the exact moment they most need to finish an important task. The behavior may look like poor self-control, but mental fatigue is often part of the picture.

Research into acupressure and alertness offers an interesting example. In a randomized crossover study conducted in a full-day classroom environment, Harris et al. (2005) compared stimulation-oriented and relaxation-oriented acupressure protocols. Participants using the stimulation protocol reported greater afternoon alertness than those using the relaxation protocol. However, sleep also influenced alertness, reminding us that complementary practices operate within a larger biological context. A technique may influence how alert someone feels, but it cannot erase the cognitive consequences of consistently inadequate sleep.

This distinction is essential when thinking about aromatherapy acupressure. Instead of approaching it as a method for forcing the brain to perform, it may be more helpful to understand it as one possible way of influencing the state from which we are attempting to concentrate.

Understanding Aromatherapy Acupressure

Aromatherapy involves the use of essential oils derived from plants, commonly through inhalation or appropriately diluted topical application. These oils contain volatile aromatic compounds that create distinctive scents and sensory experiences. Aromatherapy is generally considered a complementary health practice rather than a replacement for conventional medical or psychological care.

Acupressure developed within traditional East Asian systems of medicine and involves applying pressure with the fingers, hands, or other methods to particular points on the body. It is conceptually related to acupuncture, although acupressure does not involve inserting needles. Contemporary research has explored acupressure in relation to a variety of outcomes, including pain, nausea, fatigue, sleep, stress, and alertness, with varying levels of evidence depending on the condition being studied.

Aromatherapy acupressure combines these two experiences. A diluted aromatic preparation may be used while particular points or areas are gently pressed or massaged, creating a multisensory practice involving smell, touch, bodily awareness, and often slower, more deliberate breathing. From a traditional perspective, specific points and oils may be selected according to particular therapeutic frameworks. From a psychological perspective, however, there is another interesting possibility: the practice creates a deliberate interruption in the stream of mental activity.

This distinction matters because evidence specifically showing that aromatherapy acupressure improves concentration is currently insufficient. Research exists on aromatherapy and cognitive performance, and research exists on acupressure and outcomes such as alertness and fatigue, but these findings should not be combined into a stronger claim than the evidence supports. What we can reasonably explore is whether the sensory and regulatory elements of the practice might support the conditions associated with better concentration.

How Scent Interacts With Emotion, Memory, and Attention

Smell has a particularly close relationship with emotional and autobiographical experience. A fragrance can unexpectedly bring back a childhood memory, remind us of a particular person, or change the emotional atmosphere of a room almost instantly. This is not simply poetic language. Research examining the neural processing of odors has identified important relationships between olfactory processing and brain regions involved in emotion and memory, including the amygdala, hippocampus, insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex (Soudry et al., 2011).

This relationship becomes relevant to focus because attention does not operate independently from emotion. When we feel threatened, worried, exhausted, excited, or emotionally preoccupied, our attentional priorities change. A sensory stimulus capable of influencing subjective mood or arousal may therefore indirectly influence how prepared we feel to engage with a cognitive task.

Several studies have explored this possibility using essential oil aromas. Moss et al. (2003), for example, compared rosemary, lavender, and a no-aroma control condition in 144 healthy adults. Rosemary was associated with improvements in some measures of memory and greater alertness relative to the other conditions, although it also slowed certain aspects of memory performance. Lavender was associated with poorer working-memory performance and slower reaction times on memory and attention tasks compared with the control condition.

A later randomized study by Moss et al. (2008) compared peppermint, ylang-ylang, and a control condition. Peppermint was associated with enhanced memory and greater subjective alertness, whereas ylang-ylang was associated with increased calmness but also with impaired memory and slower processing speed.

These studies are particularly valuable because their findings are more complicated than the popular idea that a pleasant essential oil simply “boosts the brain.” An aroma associated with relaxation may not necessarily be the best choice before a demanding cognitive task, while an aroma associated with alertness does not automatically improve every aspect of cognition. The relationship between aroma and mental performance appears to depend on the scent, the individual, the cognitive task being measured, and the state the person is already in.

Mental Clarity Depends on the State You Need

Imagine two people preparing for an important presentation. The first slept only five hours and feels mentally sluggish. Their eyes are heavy, their thinking seems slower than usual, and sustaining attention requires considerable effort. A fresh or stimulating sensory experience might temporarily increase their subjective alertness, although it would not compensate for the missing sleep.

The second person slept well but is extremely anxious about the presentation. Their body is already highly activated: their shoulders are tense, their breathing is shallow, and their thoughts are rapidly cycling through possible mistakes and negative outcomes. Increasing stimulation may be the opposite of what this person needs. Their route toward clearer thinking may involve reducing arousal enough to redirect attention away from threat and toward the task.

This is why the question “Which essential oil is best for focus?” can be misleading. A more useful question is, “What state is currently interfering with my ability to focus?” If the answer is sleepiness, the desired shift may be toward greater alertness. If the answer is anxiety, the desired shift may be toward greater calm. If the problem is boredom, stimulation may help. If the problem is cognitive overload, reducing sensory input may be more effective than adding another stimulus.

Personal associations also matter. Lavender may be relaxing for one person and unpleasant for another. Peppermint may feel fresh and energizing to someone who associates it with cleanliness or morning routines, while another person may find the aroma irritating or distracting. Scent is not experienced in a psychological vacuum; it interacts with memory, preference, expectation, and context.

A mind-body approach to concentration therefore requires flexibility rather than rigid formulas. Instead of searching for a universally effective “focus scent,” it encourages us to identify the state we are in and consider what kind of transition might help us move toward a more workable level of arousal.

What Acupressure May Add to the Experience

While aromatherapy introduces an olfactory component, acupressure adds physical sensation and intentional touch. This may be particularly relevant when attention has become trapped in repetitive thinking or when fatigue is making it difficult to remain engaged.

Harris et al. (2005) investigated self-administered acupressure among students participating in full-day classes. Participants followed either a stimulation-oriented or relaxation-oriented protocol. Those using stimulation-oriented acupressure demonstrated an advantage in afternoon alertness compared with those following the relaxation protocol. The findings do not establish that acupressure universally improves concentration, and alertness should not be treated as identical to executive function, working memory, or sustained attention. Nevertheless, the study provides evidence that different acupressure approaches may influence subjective alertness.

Fatigue has also been investigated. Cavusoglu and Gun (2023) conducted a randomized, sham-controlled study examining self-administered acupressure among nursing students. Participants who practiced acupressure over four weeks reported significantly lower fatigue than those in the sham group. Once again, reduced fatigue cannot automatically be translated into improved cognitive performance, but the connection remains relevant because fatigue strongly influences how effortful concentration feels.

There may also be value in the simple act of deliberately shifting attention toward physical sensation. When you apply gentle pressure and notice what you feel beneath your fingertips, attention is temporarily redirected from the stream of thoughts, messages, worries, and unfinished tasks toward immediate sensory experience. This does not mean that every psychological benefit of acupressure can be explained by attention, nor does it invalidate traditional explanations of the practice. It simply identifies an additional psychological process that may help us understand why a brief tactile ritual can feel mentally organizing.

Why Touch and Scent Can Become Attention Anchors

One of the challenges of modern concentration is that we often try to move directly from one attentional mode into another without allowing any transition. We may spend twenty minutes moving rapidly between email, social media, messages, and browser tabs, then close everything and expect ourselves to instantly begin reading a complicated report. Although the screens have changed, the internal pace of attention may not have changed with them.

A brief sensory ritual creates a boundary between these two modes. Imagine closing unnecessary applications, placing your phone out of reach, noticing a familiar aroma, and spending a minute applying comfortable pressure to your hand or wrist while breathing slowly. You then release the pressure, open the document you need, and begin. Nothing dramatic has happened, yet the sequence creates a psychological transition from reactive attention, in which your mind responds to whatever appears next, toward intentional attention, in which you choose what deserves your cognitive resources.

This idea is consistent with what we know more broadly about contextual cues and habits. Human behavior is strongly influenced by environments and repeated associations. A particular desk can become associated with work, a certain chair with reading, a cup of tea with evening relaxation, or a familiar playlist with exercise. When a sensory cue repeatedly appears before the same behavior, it can gradually become part of the routine that signals what comes next.

Aromatherapy acupressure may function in a similar way. The value does not have to depend entirely on whether a particular essential oil directly alters cognitive performance or whether stimulating a particular point produces a measurable neurological change. Part of its practical usefulness may come from repeatedly pairing a brief sensory ritual with the decision to begin focused work.

The Psychology of a Focus Ritual

Rituals are sometimes dismissed as irrational or unnecessary, but structured routines can serve useful psychological functions. A reliable pre-work routine reduces the number of decisions required before beginning and can make the transition into focused activity more predictable. This is particularly valuable when procrastination occurs not because the task itself is impossible but because starting feels uncomfortable.

Consider a writer who struggles every afternoon to begin a demanding piece of work. She sits at her desk, checks email, rearranges documents, makes coffee, checks one more message, and tells herself that she will begin when she feels ready. Twenty minutes later, she has completed several small activities but avoided the one task that matters. If she creates a simple two-minute routine in which she closes communication apps, introduces a familiar scent, spends a short period using gentle acupressure while breathing slowly, and then immediately begins a timed work period, the ritual can become a bridge between intention and action.

The ritual does not make difficult writing easy, nor does it eliminate resistance. What it can do is reduce ambiguity around the moment of beginning. Instead of repeatedly deciding whether she is ready to work, she follows a familiar sequence and starts.

This is also where caution becomes important. A helpful ritual should simplify the transition into action rather than become another requirement for action. If concentration begins to depend on having the perfect essential oil, ideal lighting, a particular playlist, complete silence, a special drink, and twenty minutes of preparation, the routine may have become a sophisticated form of procrastination. The goal is not to create perfect internal conditions before working. It is to create a sufficiently regulated state from which meaningful work becomes possible.

When Stress Is the Real Focus Problem

People often describe difficulty concentrating as though something is wrong with their cognitive ability, yet stress can occupy a surprising amount of mental bandwidth. When we are worried about a relationship, financial problem, health concern, upcoming decision, or conflict at work, part of the mind continues processing that issue even while we are trying to concentrate elsewhere.

Imagine attempting to analyze a spreadsheet while mentally replaying an argument from that morning. Your eyes are looking at numbers, but another part of your attention is reconstructing the conversation, imagining what you should have said, and predicting what might happen later. The resulting experience feels like poor concentration, but the problem is partly competition between two cognitively demanding processes.

A brief sensory intervention may help in this situation not because it solves the original problem but because it interrupts the mental loop long enough for attention to be redirected. A familiar aroma provides an immediate sensory stimulus, touch draws awareness toward physical sensation, and deliberate breathing slows the pace of the transition. The unresolved issue remains important, but you create a temporary boundary around it and return to the task that requires your attention now.

This is a more realistic way to understand the potential value of aromatherapy acupressure. It does not erase stress, and it should not be presented as treatment for psychological disorders. It may simply provide a structured moment in which attention is invited away from repetitive internal processing and toward the present task.

Think of It as a Reset, Not a Cognitive Enhancement

Perhaps the most useful way to conceptualize aromatherapy acupressure is as a reset rather than an enhancement. The distinction protects us from unrealistic expectations. A cognitive-enhancement model suggests that a technique will directly make the brain perform better, whereas a reset model asks whether a technique can help interrupt an unhelpful state and support a more intentional return to work.

This approach fits particularly well with predictable transitions during the day. Someone might use a brief sensory reset before beginning a study session, after a demanding meeting, when returning to work after lunch, or when noticing that they have been switching compulsively between tasks. The goal is not to extend productivity indefinitely but to recognize when attention has become fragmented and respond deliberately.

For example, a student may notice that after forty minutes of studying, she repeatedly reaches for her phone. Rather than immediately interpreting this as a failure of discipline, she can treat it as information. Perhaps her attention is becoming fatigued. She might stand up, drink water, look away from the screen, move briefly, and then use a short sensory ritual before deciding whether she is ready for another period of focused work. In this scenario, aromatherapy acupressure is not the entire intervention. It is one component within a broader reset that respects the relationship between cognitive performance and physical state.

This broader perspective is important because it prevents complementary techniques from being asked to do jobs they cannot realistically perform.

What Aromatherapy Acupressure Cannot Replace

No essential oil or pressure point can compensate for chronic sleep deprivation, and no concentration ritual can resolve burnout caused by months of excessive workload. Persistent problems with attention and fatigue can also have many possible medical or psychological causes, including sleep disorders, medication effects, nutritional deficiencies, depression, anxiety, and other health conditions. Significant, unexplained, worsening, or persistent changes in concentration deserve appropriate professional evaluation rather than endless experimentation with wellness techniques.

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health describes aromatherapy within the broader category of complementary health approaches and emphasizes that evidence varies according to the condition and intervention being studied. This is the most appropriate framework for practices such as aromatherapy acupressure. They can potentially exist alongside healthy behavior and evidence-based healthcare without being presented as substitutes for them.

The same principle applies to everyday productivity. If you cannot concentrate because you slept four hours, sleep is the more important intervention. If your phone interrupts you constantly, changing your notification environment may have a greater effect than selecting an essential oil. If you have been working continuously for seven hours, a genuine break may be more useful than another strategy intended to keep you working. Sometimes the most intelligent response to poor focus is not greater stimulation but recovery.

A Simple Aromatherapy Acupressure Focus Ritual

If you enjoy aromatherapy and acupressure and can use them safely, you can experiment with a brief ritual while keeping your expectations realistic. Begin by choosing a task that genuinely requires focused attention and reducing the distractions that are under your control. Silence unnecessary notifications, move your phone away from your immediate workspace, close irrelevant browser tabs, and decide what you intend to accomplish during the next period of work.

Next, introduce an aroma that you personally associate with clarity, freshness, or a comfortable working state. Research involving rosemary and peppermint has produced interesting findings related to alertness and aspects of cognitive performance, but these studies do not establish that either oil will improve concentration for every person (Moss et al., 2003; Moss et al., 2008). Personal response should therefore guide your choice rather than marketing claims about a universal “focus oil.”

You can then apply gentle, comfortable pressure to an acupressure point or area that you have learned to use safely while allowing your breathing to become slower and more deliberate. Rather than thinking about everything you need to accomplish that day, use the brief pause to identify the next specific action. You might decide that for the next thirty minutes you are reading one chapter, editing three pages, preparing one presentation section, or analyzing one dataset. When the short ritual ends, begin the task immediately.

The entire process may take only one or two minutes. Its purpose is not to produce a special state of perfect concentration but to reduce the distance between distraction and deliberate action. In many cases, that transition itself is more important than the technique used to create it.

Observe What Actually Happens

One of the healthiest ways to approach complementary practices is with curiosity rather than certainty. Instead of deciding in advance that aromatherapy acupressure works or does not work, pay attention to your actual response.

You may discover, for example, that peppermint makes you feel more awake when you are tired but slightly restless when you are already anxious. A calming aroma may feel ideal when you are emotionally tense but leave you too relaxed for demanding analytical work. A short acupressure ritual may help you begin a task more deliberately without noticeably changing your cognitive performance. You may even discover that the greatest benefit comes simply from closing your eyes, breathing, and stepping away from the screen for sixty seconds.

These observations are useful because subjective improvement can have many possible explanations. The aroma itself may contribute, the tactile stimulation may matter, expectations may influence the experience, or the pause may simply provide a needed break. In everyday life, it is often impossible to isolate these factors completely, and that is acceptable as long as we do not turn personal experience into universal scientific claims.

A useful personal experiment is therefore not simply to ask, “Did it work?” but to notice whether beginning became easier, whether you felt calmer or more alert, whether you stayed engaged longer, and whether the ritual improved your relationship with the task. This approach encourages reflective self-awareness while reducing the risk of treating every pleasant sensation as proof of a therapeutic effect.

Safety and Responsible Use

Essential oils are highly concentrated plant extracts, and the word “natural” should never be interpreted as synonymous with “risk-free.” Depending on the oil, concentration, route of exposure, and individual sensitivity, essential oils can cause skin irritation, allergic reactions, or other adverse effects. Some oils may also increase sensitivity to sunlight. Essential oils should not be swallowed simply because they are marketed for wellness, and concentrated oils should not be applied indiscriminately to the skin. When topical use is appropriate, properly diluted preparations intended for that purpose are generally preferable.

Extra caution is appropriate for people who are pregnant, have asthma, allergies, sensitive skin, medical conditions, or concerns about interactions with medication. Children and pets also require special consideration because products tolerated by an adult may not be safe for them. When uncertainty exists, qualified medical or aromatherapy guidance is preferable to experimenting based on social media advice.

Acupressure should likewise remain gentle and comfortable. Aggressive pressure is unnecessary, and injured, inflamed, infected, or otherwise compromised areas should be avoided. Anyone with significant medical conditions or pregnancy-related concerns should seek appropriate guidance before adopting unfamiliar pressure-point protocols.

Responsible complementary wellness should increase awareness of the body rather than encourage people to ignore warning signs or delay necessary care.

Building Mental Clarity Beyond Aromatherapy Acupressure

Perhaps the most valuable lesson in exploring mind-body approaches to focus is recognizing that concentration is embodied. We do not think with a brain that exists independently from sleep, hunger, pain, movement, breathing, emotion, and the environment. The state of the body continually shapes the conditions in which attention operates.

This means that aromatherapy acupressure should never become the centerpiece of an effective concentration strategy. The foundations are much less glamorous but considerably more important: adequate sleep, realistic workloads, regular movement, sufficient nutrition and hydration, meaningful breaks, environmental distraction management, and appropriate treatment when medical or psychological problems are interfering with cognition.

Where a small sensory ritual can become valuable is in the transitions between activities. Throughout the day, there are repeated moments when we move from one cognitive state into another: from a meeting into writing, from scrolling into studying, from a difficult conversation into administrative work, or from mental fatigue into the decision about whether to continue or rest. These transitions are often overlooked, yet they can determine how easily we engage with what comes next.

Aromatherapy acupressure can become one way of marking those transitions. The scent, pressure, and brief pause provide a moment in which you can notice your current state, decide what you need, and choose your next action more intentionally. The technique itself may be small, but the habit of checking in before demanding more from your attention can have broader psychological value.

From “I Need to Focus” to “What Do I Need to Focus?”

One of the most useful shifts we can make is replacing the command “I need to focus” with the question “What do I need in order to focus?” The first statement assumes that concentration is available and that we simply need enough discipline to activate it. The second encourages curiosity about the conditions affecting our attention.

Sometimes the answer will be greater stimulation because we are sleepy or bored. At other times, we may need calm because anxiety is consuming our attention. We may discover that we need movement after sitting for several hours, food after skipping lunch, silence after an overstimulating morning, or a real break after sustained cognitive effort. Occasionally, what we need is simply to write down a worry so that the mind no longer feels responsible for continuously rehearsing it.

Aromatherapy acupressure can fit naturally within this process because it encourages us to notice the body before immediately overriding it. Instead of treating poor concentration as a character flaw, we become interested in the state surrounding it. This does not mean accommodating every impulse to stop working or waiting until we feel perfect before beginning. Rather, it means recognizing that effective self-regulation involves knowing when to activate ourselves, when to calm ourselves, when to remove distractions, and when to recover.

That understanding may ultimately be more useful than discovering any single technique for concentration.

Conclusion: Creating the Conditions for Mental Clarity

Can aromatherapy acupressure improve focus? The current evidence does not allow us to say confidently that combining essential oils with acupressure reliably improves concentration. Research does, however, suggest that certain aromas can influence subjective alertness, mood, memory, and aspects of cognitive performance, while studies of acupressure have reported promising findings related to alertness and fatigue (Harris et al., 2005; Moss et al., 2003; Moss et al., 2008; Cavusoglu & Gun, 2023). These findings make the practice interesting, but they should not be stretched into claims that research has not yet established.

A more grounded way to use aromatherapy acupressure is as a brief mind-body transition ritual. Scent, touch, intentional breathing, and a deliberate pause may help interrupt mental fragmentation and create a clearer boundary between one activity and the next. For some people, that may make it easier to settle into focused work, particularly when the ritual is paired with practical strategies such as reducing distractions and defining the next concrete task.

The broader message is that concentration rarely exists independently of the state we bring to the task. Mental clarity is shaped by how rested, stressed, emotionally occupied, physically comfortable, and environmentally distracted we are. Sometimes better focus requires changing the environment; sometimes it requires sleep or recovery; sometimes it requires addressing an underlying health concern; and sometimes a brief sensory pause may be enough to help us shift gears.

Rather than continually asking the mind to work harder, it can be useful to become more curious about what helps the whole person become ready to work. Aromatherapy acupressure may be one small tool within that larger process, not as a shortcut to perfect concentration, but as an invitation to approach attention with greater awareness, intention, and respect for the connection between mind and body.

References

Cavusoglu, E., & Gun, M. (2023). The effects of self-administered acupressure on fatigue in nursing students: A single-blind, randomized, sham-controlled study. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 29(7), 297–301.

Harris, R. E., Jeter, J., Chan, P., Higgins, P., Kong, F. M., Fazel, R., Bramson, C., & Gillespie, B. (2005). Using acupressure to modify alertness in the classroom: A single-blinded, randomized, cross-over trial. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 11(4), 673–679. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2005.11.673

Moss, M., Cook, J., Wesnes, K., & Duckett, P. (2003). Aromas of rosemary and lavender essential oils differentially affect cognition and mood in healthy adults. International Journal of Neuroscience, 113(1), 15–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207450390161903

Moss, M., Hewitt, S., Moss, L., & Wesnes, K. (2008). Modulation of cognitive performance and mood by aromas of peppermint and ylang-ylang. International Journal of Neuroscience, 118(1), 59–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207450601042094

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