scholarly journals A fast link between face perception and memory in the temporal pole

Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. eabi6671
Author(s):  
Sofia M. Landi ◽  
Pooja Viswanathan ◽  
Stephen Serene ◽  
Winrich A. Freiwald
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Face Perception ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
History Of Neuroscience ◽  
Person Memory ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
Fast Recognition ◽  
Temporal Pole ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Brain

The question of how the brain recognizes the faces of familiar individuals has been important throughout the history of neuroscience. Cells linking visual processing to person memory have been proposed, but not found. Here we report the discovery of such cells through recordings from an fMRI-identified area in the macaque temporal pole. These cells responded to faces when they were personally familiar. They responded non-linearly to step-wise changes in face visibility and detail, and holistically to face parts, reflecting key signatures of familiar face recognition. They discriminated between familiar identities, as fast as a general face identity area. The discovery of these cells establishes a new pathway for the fast recognition of familiar individuals.

scholarly journals Objective Patterns of Face Recognition Deficits in 165 Adults with Self-Reported Developmental Prosopagnosia

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Bate ◽  
Rachel J. Bennetts ◽  
Nicola Gregory ◽  
Jeremy J. Tree ◽  
Ebony Murray ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Face Perception ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Severe Form ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Face Memory ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
Unfamiliar Face ◽  
Prevalent Form

In the last 15 years, increasing numbers of individuals have self-referred to research laboratories in the belief that they experience severe everyday difficulties with face recognition. The condition “developmental prosopagnosia” (DP) is typically diagnosed when impairment is identified on at least two objective face-processing tests, usually involving assessments of face perception, unfamiliar face memory, and famous face recognition. While existing evidence suggests that some individuals may have a mnemonic form of prosopagnosia, it is also possible that other subtypes exist. The current study assessed 165 adults who believe they experience DP, and 38% of the sample were impaired on at least two of the tests outlined above. While statistical dissociations between face perception and face memory were only observed in four cases, a further 25% of the sample displayed dissociations between impaired famous face recognition and intact short-term unfamiliar face memory and face perception. We discuss whether this pattern of findings reflects (a) limitations within dominant diagnostic tests and protocols, (b) a less severe form of DP, or (c) a currently unrecognized but prevalent form of the condition that affects long-term face memory, familiar face recognition or semantic processing.

scholarly journals Soul searching: a brief history of the mind/body debate in the neurosciences

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
The Self ◽  
History Of Neuroscience ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Way

✓Anatomical and physiological understandings of the structure and function of the brain have worked to establish it as the “seat of the soul.” As an organ of reflection, meditation, and memory, the brain becomes synonymous with what defines the “self” through the existence of consciousness—of mind. Thus, the brain has been associated with a range of transcendent concepts—the soul, spirit, mind, and consciousness—that all relate in fundamental ways to each other both in terms of their perceived location within the brain and because of the way each works ultimately to define the person to whom the brain belongs. In this article, the author provides a brief exploration of how interrelated these categories have been when seen in the context of ancient, Renaissance, early modern, and modern philosophical and medical concerns; how the brain has variously been perceived as home to these intimate states of being; and how practitioners from the neurosciences have reflected on these questions. The author provides novel insights into the interrelationships of philosophy, theology, and medicine by examining these issues through the lens of the history of neuroscience.

The intriguing encounters of Pavlov and Cushing

2004 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 568-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiarash Shahlaie ◽  
Joseph C. Watson ◽  
Daniel R. Benson
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Content Type ◽  
New Era ◽  
History Of Neuroscience ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Journal Entries ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Fine Print

✓ Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and Harvey William Cushing were two of the most prominent neuroscientists of the early 20th century. Their contributions helped advance the understanding of the brain and its disorders, and propelled neuroscience into a new era of research and treatment. Although separated geographically and culturally, Pavlov and Cushing exchanged letters and followed one another's careers from afar. They met only a few times, during international scientific gatherings in the US and abroad. These encounters were captured in journal entries, letters, and photographs, and provide a glimpse into the lives of these two great men and the history of neuroscience at the turn of the last century.

scholarly journals The neural dynamics of familiar face recognition

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Géza Gergely Ambrus ◽  
Daniel Kaiser ◽  
Radoslaw Martin Cichy ◽  
Gyula Kovács
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Identity Information ◽  
Face Identity ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
Invariant Representations

AbstractIn real-life situations, the appearance of a person’s face can vary substantially across different encounters, making face recognition a challenging task for the visual system. Recent fMRI decoding studies have suggested that face recognition is supported by identity representations located in regions of the occipito-temporal cortex. Here, we used EEG to elucidate the temporal emergence of these representations. Human participants (both sexes) viewed a set of highly variable face images of four highly familiar celebrities (two male, two female), while performing an orthogonal task. Univariate analyses of event-related EEG responses revealed a pronounced differentiation between male and female faces, but not between identities of the same sex. Using multivariate representational similarity analysis, we observed a gradual emergence of face identity representations, with an increasing degree of invariance. Face identity information emerged rapidly, starting shortly after 100ms from stimulus onset. From 400ms after onset and predominantly in the right hemisphere, identity representations showed two invariance properties: (1) they equally discriminated identities of opposite sexes and of the same sex, and (2) they were tolerant to image-based variations. These invariant representations may be a crucial prerequisite for successful face recognition in everyday situations, where the appearance of a familiar person can vary drastically.Significance StatementRecognizing the face of a friend on the street is a task we effortlessly perform in our everyday lives. However, the necessary visual processing underlying familiar face recognition is highly complex. As the appearance of a given person varies drastically between encounters, for example across viewpoints or emotional expressions, the brain needs to extract identity information that is invariant to such changes. Using multivariate analyses of EEG data, we characterize how invariant representations of face identity emerge gradually over time. After 400ms of processing, cortical representations reliably differentiated two similar identities (e.g., two famous male actors), even across a set of highly variable images. These representations may support face recognition under challenging real-life conditions.

The neuroanatomical plates of Guido da Vigevano

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Di Ieva ◽  
Manfred Tschabitscher ◽  
Francesco Prada ◽  
Paolo Gaetani ◽  
Enrico Aimar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Anatomical Studies ◽  
History Of Neuroscience ◽  
Italian Physician ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Brain

✓Guido da Vigevano was an Italian physician and engineer who lived in the 13th and 14th centuries. He was the first scientist who used pictures to illustrate his anatomical descriptions, developing for the first time a close relationship between anatomical studies and artistic drawings. This was further developed in the Renaissance. In his textbook Anathomia are displayed six plates showing for the first time neuroanatomical structures and techniques: dissection of the head by means of trephination, and depictions of the meninges, cerebrum, and spinal cord. On the surface of the brain painting it is possible to recognize a vague patterning of cortical convolutions. Ventricles are also described and shown. This book constituted the first attempt in the history of neuroscience to illustrate an anatomical description with schematic pictures to achieve a better understanding of such complex structures.

scholarly journals Perceptual difficulty modulates the direction of information flow in familiar face recognition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Karimi-Rouzbahani ◽  
Farzad Remezani ◽  
Alexandra Woolgar ◽  
Anina Rich ◽  
Masoud Ghodrati
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Neural Correlate ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
Frontal Brain ◽  
Neurophysiological Studies ◽  
Perceptual Difficulty ◽  
Sensory Evidence ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces

AbstractHumans are fast and accurate when they recognize familiar faces. Previous neurophysiological studies have shown enhanced representations for the dichotomy of familiar vs. unfamiliar faces. As familiarity is a spectrum, however, any neural correlate should reflect graded representations for more vs. less familiar faces along the spectrum. By systematically varying familiarity across stimuli, we show a neural familiarity spectrum using electroencephalography. We then evaluated the spatiotemporal dynamics of familiar face recognition across the brain. Specifically, we developed a novel informational connectivity method to test whether peri-frontal brain areas contribute to familiar face recognition. Results showed that feed-forward flow dominates for the most familiar faces and top-down flow was only dominant when sensory evidence was insufficient to support face recognition. These results demonstrate that perceptual difficulty and the level of familiarity influence the neural representation of familiar faces and the degree to which peri-frontal neural networks contribute to familiar face recognition.

The history of the brain and mind sciences

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 145-154
Author(s):  
Alfred Freeborn
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
Review Article ◽  
The Self ◽  
History Of Neuroscience ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of The Neurosciences ◽  
Cerebral Subject ◽  
The Brain ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

This review article critically surveys the following literature by placing it under the historiographical banner of ‘the history of the brain and mind sciences’: Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega, Being Brains: Making the Cerebral Subject (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017); Katja Guenther, Localization and its Discontents: A Genealogy of Psychoanalysis & the Neuro Disciplines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Stephen Casper and Delia Gavrus (eds), The History of the Brain and Mind Sciences: Technique, Technology, Therapy (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2017); Jonna Brenninkmeijer, Neurotechnologies of the Self: Mind, Brain and Subjectivity (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). This framework highlights contemporary attempts to historicize the integrative project of neuroscience and set the correct limits to interdisciplinary collaboration. While attempts to critically engage with the ‘neuro’ rhetoric of contemporary neuroscientists can seem at odds with historians seeking to write the history of neuroscience from the margins, it is argued that together these two projects represent a positive historiographical direction for the history of the neurosciences after the decade of the brain.

scholarly journals L2HGDH Missense Variant in a Cat with L-2-Hydroxyglutaric Aciduria

Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 682
Author(s):  
Matthias Christen ◽  
Nils Janzen ◽  
Anne Fraser ◽  
Adrian C. Sewell ◽  
Vidhya Jagannathan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Genetic Defect ◽  
Clinical Signs ◽  
Missense Variant ◽  
Microcytic Anemia ◽  
Abnormal Behavior ◽  
Functional Candidate Gene ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Hydroxyglutaric Acid

A 7-month-old, spayed female, domestic longhair cat with L-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria (L-2-HGA) was investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical signs, metabolic changes and underlying genetic defect. The owner of the cat reported a 4-month history of multiple paroxysmal seizure-like episodes, characterized by running around the house, often in circles, with abnormal behavior, bumping into obstacles, salivating and often urinating. The episodes were followed by a period of disorientation and inappetence. Neurological examination revealed an absent bilateral menace response. Routine blood work revealed mild microcytic anemia but biochemistry, ammonia, lactate and pre- and post-prandial bile acids were unremarkable. MRI of the brain identified multifocal, bilaterally symmetrical and T2-weighted hyperintensities within the prosencephalon, mesencephalon and metencephalon, primarily affecting the grey matter. Urinary organic acids identified highly increased levels of L-2-hydroxyglutaric acid. The cat was treated with the anticonvulsants levetiracetam and phenobarbitone and has been seizure-free for 16 months. We sequenced the genome of the affected cat and compared the data to 48 control genomes. L2HGDH, coding for L-2-hydroxyglutarate dehydrogenase, was investigated as the top functional candidate gene. This search revealed a single private protein-changing variant in the affected cat. The identified homozygous variant, XM_023255678.1:c.1301A>G, is predicted to result in an amino acid change in the L2HGDH protein, XP_023111446.1:p.His434Arg. The available clinical and biochemical data together with current knowledge about L2HGDH variants and their functional impact in humans and dogs allow us to classify the p.His434Arg variant as a causative variant for the observed neurological signs in this cat.

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