Today's "Science" has found a whole new class of brain cells. Without it, it may be blind!

In the vast crowd, we can always recognize our acquaintances at a glance

In fact, as early as more than half a century ago, scientists wanted to know how the brain "recognized faces"

But 60 years later, although scientists have found many neurons related to processing facial information, they have never found which brain cells still have the function of "recognizing acquaintances

Five years ago, Professor Freiwald and other scientists jointly discovered that the "temporal pole" area located at one end of the brain's temporal lobe may be related to the "face recognition" ability

Interestingly, the neurons in this area seem to be very selective: they are much more active when you see the faces of acquaintances

▲The temporal pole area (red and yellow) is involved in facial recognition (picture source: reference [2]; Credit: Sofia Landi)

Moreover, the researchers also observed a very interesting phenomenon: even if the monkeys used the screen to play the faces of strangers many times, they still responded better to the acquaintances they had met in the real world

Why do these neurons recognize the faces of acquaintances? The researchers also gave their explanation: On the one hand, neurons in this area of ​​the brain are like sensory cells, which can quickly and accurately respond to visual stimuli; on the other hand, these cells also have the function of "memory cells".

Note: The original text has been deleted

Reference materials:

[1] Sofia M.

[2] Scientists discover a new class of memory cells in the brain, Retrieved July 1, 2021, from https://