July 16, 2021 — That flash of familiarity we really feel once we see somebody we all know has lengthy fascinated and stumped scientists, who’ve been unable to pinpoint what is occurring 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 towards the prevailing understanding in neuroscience that various areas of the brain should talk with one another to course of info. As a substitute, this examine reveals that one area of the mind seems to be working for the only goal of figuring out individuals 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 — can be found, however that has but to occur.
The issue is so entrenched in neuroscience that senior writer 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 have been proven images of faces; a number of the individuals they knew, and a number of the individuals 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 power to inform the distinction between recognized and new faces.
In reality, neuronal responses have been 3 times stronger for faces of individuals the monkeys have been personally acquainted with than for faces of these they didn’t know, even when that they had seen these faces a number of instances on screens.
This might level to the significance of figuring out somebody in individual, the researchers clarify. Given the tendency these days to work together nearly, we should be conscious that faces now we have seen on a display screen may not evoke the identical neuronal exercise as faces we meet in individual.
With this info, 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 components of the mind and what occurs when a brand new face seems.
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