5 ms·

Not being dismissive - did we not already know this? What about this finding was not already known?

by csours 4y ago

amelius 4y ago
I think it was not known that it are always the same neurons lighting up, even between humans. So not learned behavior, but baked in through evolution. But I didn't read the article, so I could be wrong.
- monktastic1 4y ago
  In what sense can it be the "same" neuron across different people? And if the answer is that both light up under the same conditions, isn't that circular?
  - amelius 4y ago
    It can be the "same" neurons if they are found in the same area of the brain. E.g. in some layer behind the retina.
tiahura 4y ago
"To do that, the researchers applied a mathematical method that allows them to discover neural populations that can’t be identified from traditional fMRI data. An fMRI image is made up of many voxels — three-dimensional units that represent a cube of brain tissue. Each voxel contains hundreds of thousands of neurons, and if some of those neurons belong to smaller populations that respond to one type of visual input, their responses may be drowned out by other populations within the same voxel. The new analytical method, which Kanwisher’s lab has previously used on fMRI data from the auditory cortex, can tease out responses of neural populations within each voxel of fMRI data. Using this approach, the researchers found four populations that corresponded to previously identified clusters that respond to faces, places, bodies, and words. “That tells us that this method works, and it tells us that the things that we found before are not just obscure properties of that pathway, but major, dominant properties,” Kanwisher says. Intriguingly, a fifth population also emerged, and this one appeared to be selective for images of food." - I think what the research is showing is that our visual cortex is primed to see 5 different categories: faces, places, bodies, words, and food.
- ddingus 4y ago
  I want to know what happens when they read text describing food.
  - IIAOPSW 4y ago
    I want to know what happens when they read text.
IIAOPSW 4y ago
Actually the opposite. The story of a single neuron on/off state for everything we experience is just that, a story. If you tried to build a skull large enough to hold all that, it would burst. The reality is that paradigm of hardwired neurons works well for the initial layers of processing (Eg recognizing lines and circles in visual stimuli), but that same model can't be repeated all the way up to the point of having a "grandmother neuron" for recognizing Grandmas face. There's just too many possible states of grandmas. There has been some evidence (like this study) that maybe sometimes there are "sparsely coding neurons" (Eg, some monkeys apparently have a brain cell that reliably responds to seeing Jenifer Aniston and nothing else). But such sparse coding (if it exists) is the exception not the rule. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njf8jwEGRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njf8jwEGRo

Not being dismissive - did we not already know this? What about this finding was not already known?

by csours 4y ago

Not being dismissive - did we not already know this? What about this finding was not already known?

I think it was not known that it are always the same neurons lighting up, even between humans. So not learned behavior, but baked in through evolution. But I didn't read the article, so I could be wrong.

monktastic1 4y ago
In what sense can it be the "same" neuron across different people? And if the answer is that both light up under the same conditions, isn't that circular?
- amelius 4y ago
  It can be the "same" neurons if they are found in the same area of the brain. E.g. in some layer behind the retina.

tiahura 4y ago

"To do that, the researchers applied a mathematical method that allows them to discover neural populations that can’t be identified from traditional fMRI data. An fMRI image is made up of many voxels — three-dimensional units that represent a cube of brain tissue. Each voxel contains hundreds of thousands of neurons, and if some of those neurons belong to smaller populations that respond to one type of visual input, their responses may be drowned out by other populations within the same voxel. The new analytical method, which Kanwisher’s lab has previously used on fMRI data from the auditory cortex, can tease out responses of neural populations within each voxel of fMRI data. Using this approach, the researchers found four populations that corresponded to previously identified clusters that respond to faces, places, bodies, and words. “That tells us that this method works, and it tells us that the things that we found before are not just obscure properties of that pathway, but major, dominant properties,” Kanwisher says. Intriguingly, a fifth population also emerged, and this one appeared to be selective for images of food." - I think what the research is showing is that our visual cortex is primed to see 5 different categories: faces, places, bodies, words, and food.

ddingus 4y ago
I want to know what happens when they read text describing food.
- IIAOPSW 4y ago
  I want to know what happens when they read text.

IIAOPSW 4y ago

Actually the opposite. The story of a single neuron on/off state for everything we experience is just that, a story. If you tried to build a skull large enough to hold all that, it would burst. The reality is that paradigm of hardwired neurons works well for the initial layers of processing (Eg recognizing lines and circles in visual stimuli), but that same model can't be repeated all the way up to the point of having a "grandmother neuron" for recognizing Grandmas face. There's just too many possible states of grandmas. There has been some evidence (like this study) that maybe sometimes there are "sparsely coding neurons" (Eg, some monkeys apparently have a brain cell that reliably responds to seeing Jenifer Aniston and nothing else). But such sparse coding (if it exists) is the exception not the rule. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njf8jwEGRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njf8jwEGRo