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 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 numerous areas of the brain should talk with one another to course of info. As a substitute, this research exhibits that one area of the mind seems to be working for the only real function of figuring out individuals we all know.
It was thought {that a} single mind cell — known as the grandmother neuron, due to its capacity to determine 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 conduct 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 research, Freiwald and his colleagues recorded electrical indicators from neurons within the brains of two rhesus monkeys as they have been proven photographs of faces; a few of the individuals they knew, and a few of the individuals they didn’t.
The crew confirmed that neurons within the decrease entrance of the mind, the temporal pole, play a task within the identification of acquainted faces and the flexibility to inform the distinction between identified and new faces.
In actual fact, neuronal responses have been 3 times stronger for faces of individuals the monkeys have been personally accustomed to 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 understanding somebody in particular person, the researchers clarify. Given the tendency these days to work together just about, we should be conscious that faces we’ve got seen on a display screen may not evoke the identical neuronal exercise as faces we meet in particular person.
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 elements of the mind and what occurs when a brand new face seems.
