After the immense research of years, the scientists have finally discovered regarding new brain cells what they have been looking for. The primary question that arose in the scientist’s mind is the reason behind the deeply rooted identification when we see an extremely familiar face.
But the idea of already existing “grandmother neuron,” a solitary cell at the intersection of real discernment and memory, fit for focusing on a significant face over the riff-raff, stayed slippery.
How do humans recognize familiar faces?
After all the research that the scientists have done, it has been uncovered that a specific class of neurons in the temporal pole region of our brains exist, which is known to link or relate face recognition to long-term memory.
However, it is not like the apocryphal grandmother neuron that is a single cell but exists more as a group of cells that altogether recollect the recognition. This theory or discovery has finally proved and given us a reason for how humans can imprint the face of loved ones in our minds.
Dismissal of all theories by terming “Grandmother neuron.”
According to the Professor of Neurosciences and Behavior at Rockefeller University, Winrich Freiwald, when he was during his learning period in neuroscience, you could easily dismiss a theory or argument by terming it as Just another grandmother neuron, a hypothetical that might exist somewhere, and the discussion will no longer be in existence or hold debatable.
But now, after we have studied the unclear and concealed part of the brain, we found the existence of something which is closest to a grandmother neuron which is somewhat a group of cells that are efficient enough of recognising the face related to something of a similar sort in our memory down the lane.
Explanation of the brain cell theories for facial recognition in humans
The idea of a grandmother neuron was first glimpsed in the 1960s, which mentioned a theoretical cell in the brain responsible for a specific coding of the complex concept by itself. The idea revealed that one neuron is responsible for the memory of one’s grandmother, the other for the mother’s memory, and so on.
However, the central idea was to calculate and understand the one-to-one ratio between those brain cells to find out the basic theory behind the existence of those long-term memories in glimpses that a human recalls several times. The trouble and mystery were to explain what way these brain cells combine and work as they do.
Scientists have successfully discovered many neurons and are sensory and efficient enough to recognise the face or facial information related to a person. But the existence of grandmother neurons could never be justified. Even their presence of a hybrid cell capable and efficient enough to link the memory to one’s version has never been developed.
However, Freiwald expects that this development would have happened by now. He also mentions that they did not have a single knowledge or the specific site of exactly how the brain processes the knowledge related to familiar faces.
As of late, Freiwald and partners found that a bit of region in the mind’s worldly post area might be engaged with facial acknowledgement. So the group utilised “functional magnetic resonance imaging” as a manual for focusing on the TP locales of two rhesus monkeys and recorded the electrical signs of TP neurons as the macaques watched pictures of recognisable faces (which they had found face to face) and new faces that they had just seen for all intents and purposes, on a screen.
Results of the experiment by Freiwald and his team
The group found that neurons in the TP locale were particular, reacting to faces that the subjects had seen before more unequivocally than new ones. What’s more, the neurons were quick in the process of segregating among known and obscure faces promptly after processing the picture or image developed.
Curiously, these cells reacted triple all the more unequivocally to recognise new faces even though the subjects had seen the new faces ordinarily essentially on screens. “This may highlight the importance of knowing somebody face-to-face,” says neuroscientist Sofia Landi, the first author of the paper. “Given the propensity lately to travel virtual, note that faces that we’ve seen on a screen might not summon the very neuronal movement as appearances that we meet face to face.”
Future expectation from the presently discovered theory
The disclosure of the TP locale at the core of facial acknowledgement implies that analysts and scientists can before long begin examining how those cells encode recognisable countenances. “We would now be able to ask how this locale is associated with different pieces of the cerebrum and what happens when another face shows up,” Freiwald adds. “Also, obviously, we can start investigating how it functions in the human mind.”
Later on, the discoveries may likewise have clinical ramifications for individuals experiencing prosopagnosia or face visual deficiency, a socially separating condition that affects around one percent of the population. This theory and later discoveries could do wonders to the existing lives and those in the future.
