'Celebrity thought experiment "can show evidence of memory
- July 2, 2015
- Health Section
The researchers used "mind games" to reveal change the time to make new memories instructions on how nerve cells can.
The team asked 14 volunteers to see the images of people and faces, while recording the activity of individual brain cells.
The scientist, he said the "dramatic" differences in the nervous activity at the right time a participant of a new relationship between a person and place looked learned.
The first work was published in the journal Neuron.
People and Places
Brain researchers have long debated exactly how memories are formed, and many questions remain unanswered.
Competing theories include the idea that the solitary neurons or some one person or a concept, whereas others believe that a number of neurons are needed to form a memory.
Ten years ago, a team including Professor Qian Rodrigo Quiroga, discovered a particular neuron "Jennifer Aniston" that when a person has looked at photos of the actress shot.
With this work, Dr. Quiroga, in collaboration with Dr. Matias Ison, University of Leicester, and scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, wanted to see if these cells have a role in new memories.
To this end, they developed a series of experiments, the one person who vaguely remembers someone come together imitated in a new place.
That they had electrodes attached to the brain to control neural activity - - viewing photos of people, such as actor Clint Eastwood and Jennifer Aniston participants were asked.
In each test, the researchers recorded the specific neurons fired in response to each image.
He then asked the participants to look photos of their independent monuments - such as the Tower of Pisa, during the persecution of the individual neurons that each site.
The images were digitally merged, for example to demonstrate, Clint Eastwood, the. Before the leaning tower
Finally, if people pictures of the tower came back - this time without celebrity posing in front of him - the first neuron sensitive to Clint Eastwood also began firing.
Scientists say this points to the facts unrelated celebrity and body may quickly.
Dr. Matias Ison said: "This study is the first to examine how a single neuron contextual learning new associations correlates in the human brain.
"The surprising fact is that these changes have been dramatic very quiet in terms of the development of neurons, a lot of shooting and that these changes took place at the right time to learn."
The researchers hope this discovery will help to better understand the basis for the creation of memory, while recognizing the memory is more complex than the simple design of the connections between related concepts.
Winrich Freiwald, Assistant Professor at the Rockefeller University, told the BBC: "This reinforces the idea that neurons can represent complex high-level entities such as individuals and pins.
"And through the study of people at the right time in learning new partnerships offers to book a unique insight into the formation of new memories."
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