July 16, 2021 — That flash of familiarity we really feel after we see somebody we all know has lengthy fascinated and stumped scientists, who’ve been unable to pinpoint what is going on within the mind. However for the primary time, researchers are now reporting a brand new class of cells they are saying is accountable.
The invention goes in opposition to the prevailing understanding in neuroscience that various areas of the brain should talk with one another to course of data. As a substitute, this examine reveals that one area of the mind seems to be working for the only goal of figuring out folks we all know.
It was thought {that a} single mind cell — referred to as the grandmother neuron, due to its means to establish acquainted faces, like an individual’s grandmother’s — could be found, however that has but to occur.
The issue is so entrenched in neuroscience that senior creator Winrich Freiwald, PhD, a professor of neurosciences and habits on the Rockefeller College in New York Metropolis, says that when one scientist desires to ridicule one other’s argument, they dismiss it as “simply one other grandmother neuron,” or unproven concept.
Now, in an obscure and understudied space of the mind, Freiwald says they’ve discovered the closest factor to a grandmother neuron in cells able to linking face notion to reminiscence.
The Grandmother of Cells
For his or her examine, Freiwald and his colleagues recorded electrical indicators from neurons within the brains of two rhesus monkeys as they had been proven pictures of faces; a few of the folks they knew, and a few of the folks they didn’t.
The workforce confirmed that neurons within the decrease entrance of the mind, the temporal pole, play a job within the identification of acquainted faces and the flexibility to inform the distinction between identified and new faces.
The truth is, neuronal responses had been 3 times stronger for faces of individuals the monkeys had been personally acquainted with than for faces of these they didn’t know, even when that they had seen these faces a number of occasions on screens.
This might level to the significance of realizing somebody in particular person, the researchers clarify. Given the tendency these days to work together nearly, we have to be conscious that faces now we have seen on a display may not evoke the identical neuronal exercise as faces we meet in particular person.
With this data, scientists can begin to examine how these mind cells encode acquainted faces. The researchers say they’ll now ask how this area is related to the opposite elements of the mind and what occurs when a brand new face seems.
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