Single cell recognition research at UCLA/Caltech finds a Halle Be...( World travelers instantly identify the ...)

But how does the human brain translate varied and even abstract visual images into a single instantly and consistently recognizable concept? A research team led by neuroscientists at UCLA and California Institute of Technology shows the process begins with a single brain cell.

Reporting in the June 23 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Nature, a research team led by neuroscientists at UCLA and Caltech finds that individual neurons are able to recognize people, landmarks and objects even letter strings of names. The findings suggest a consistent, sparse and explicit code that may play a role in transforming complex visual representations into long-term and more abstract memories.

"This new understanding of individual neurons as 'thinking cells' is an important step toward cracking the brain's cognition code," said senior investigator Dr. Itzhak Fried, professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "As our understanding grows, we one day may be able to build cognitive prostheses to replace functions lost due to brain injury or disease, perhaps even for memory."

"Our findings fly in the face of conventional thinking about how brain cells function," adds senior investigator Christof C. Koch, the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology, professor of computation and neural systems at Caltech. "Conventional wisdom views individual brain cells as simple switches or relays. In fact, we are finding that neurons are able to function more like a soph
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Contact: Dan Page
dpage@mednet.ucla.edu
310-794-2265
University of California - Los Angeles
22-Jun-2005