|
Professor Quiroga also discovered that
the firing of these neurons made it possible to actually
tell what the subjects were seeing - literally reading
their minds. Professor Quiroga
says understanding how information is represented by
neurons in the brain is one of the major scientific
challenges of our day and despite spectacular progress
in the last few decades, comprehending how visual inputs
are processed to create a conscious perception is still
a long way off.
His main research interest is studying
the principles of neural coding and since complex
behaviour is encoded by the activity of large
populations of neurons, he is working on the development
of advanced methods to extract useful information from
the data.
Professor Quiroga says he is
examining how information about the external
world - what we see, hear, touch - and our own
internal representations - memories, emotions,
etc. - is represented by neurons in the brain.
He says we can easily recognize a person in a
fraction of a second, even when seen from
different angles, with different sizes, colours,
contrasts and under strikingly different
conditions - but how neurons in the brain are
capable of creating such an 'abstract'
representation, disregarding basic visual
details, is only starting to be known." |
|
Professor Quiroga made the discovery
after showing people being treated for epilepsy hundreds
of pictures of famous people and landmarks - when tiny
electrodes implanted as part of their treatment picked
up the electrical activity or 'firing' of around 100
brain cells in each person.
Tests showed that one woman had a cell
that specifically recognised pictures of Jennifer
Aniston and people's brain cells appear to be encoded to
store memories of individual celebrities such Bill
Clinton, Halle Berry, Pamela Anderson, Oprah Winfrey and
Tom Cruise - famous landmarks also had their own cells.
The study also showed that the same
person can have a number of cells devoted to different
celebrities or landmarks.
Professor Quiroga promises to describe
how his research has high clinical potential for the
development of NeuroProsthetic devices, such as robotic
arms driven by neural signals to be used by paralyzed
patients and says his discovery has far-reaching
implications - not only for the development of neuronal
prostheses, but for treatment of patients with epilepsy,
Alzheimer's and schizophrenia and also for further
understanding how perceptions and memories are
represented in the brain.
Professor Quiroga will reveal all
about the 'Jennifer Aniston neuron' during his inaugural
Professorial lecture on Tuesday 4 November at at the
University of Leicester. |
