Neuroscientists discover mechanisms of object recognition.

[laconicsax]

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-neuroscientists-uncover-neural-mechanisms-recognition.html

Neuroscientists from Carnegie Mellon University and Princeton University examined the brain of a person with object agnosia, a deficit in the ability to recognize objects that does not include damage to the eyes or a general loss in intelligence, and have uncovered the neural mechanisms of object recognition. The results, published by Cell Press in the July 15th issue of the journal Neuron, describe the functional neuroanatomy of object agnosia and suggest that damage to the part of the brain critical for object recognition can have a widespread impact on remote parts of the cortex.

"One of the persisting controversies in the field of visual neuroscience concerns the regions of cortex that subserve the human ability to recognize objects as efficiently and accurately as we do, and it's been an elusive topic until now," said Marlene Behrmann, professor of psychology at CMU and a renowned expert in using brain imaging to study the visual perception system.

...

The researchers discovered that the functional organization of the "lower" visual cortex, where the image from the retina is initially processed, was similar in SM and control subjects. However, SM exhibited decreased object-selective responses in the brain tissue in and around the brain lesion, and in more distant cortical areas that are also known to be involved in object recognition. Unexpectedly, the decrease in object-selective responses was also observed in corresponding locations of SM's structurally intact left hemisphere.

...

Additionally, the researchers found that an area of the brain called the right lateral fusiform gyrus is vital for object recognition. There also appeared to be some functional reorganization in intact regions of SM's damaged right hemisphere, suggesting that neural plasticity is possible even when the brain is damaged in adulthood.

More at link: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-neuroscientists-uncover-neural-mechanisms-recognition.html

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. Wow. I just love reading this stuff.

I did CS in college, and this is the kind of AI problem that "makes you believe in God": How to get a computer to do what a human mind can do with recognizing simple objects? So you look to the human brain with awe and inspiration, waiting for the next surprise. These findings are contrary to my own intuition that object recognition is an integral part of vision (they are done in different parts of the brain) but the really interesting thing in the article is the right-left parallelism, so damage on one side manifests on the other in terms of function. WTF???

[jul61252]

5. +1

[patrice]

2. I taught AP Psych as Science with my personal emphasis on the Neurophysiology, because

I felt it important for young people to start to think about the biological bases of behavior.

Like most teens, they never worked very hard, but they had real curiosity about our brains and nervous systems. We used to, each of us, model a brain out of colored plastic clay and hang them from the ceiling grid over their desks. We also did a neural mural on the entire back wall of the classroom, in which they could shape their neuron anyway they wanted to, but they had to get the dendrites to terminal branches "connections" correct between neurons. My teens always really got into that; they'd color them up real fancy and put special symbols in the nucleus or in the synaptic cleffs. I think they REALLY are fascinated by the human brain and how it works, too bad more is not being made of their interest in it.

[thereismore]

3. They don't know anything about the mechanism. The title is misleading.

All they know is where it's likely being processed, but the how and why is anybody's guess.

[laconicsax]

4. I took it from the source.

"...and have uncovered the neural mechanisms of object recognition."

[thereismore]

6. It was not your fault. I did not mean it that way. These "science" writers do this all the time. nt