The neurons of themedial temporal lobe of the brain(MTL for its acronym in English) respond to visual stimuli, and it is known that their activity can be modulated by attention. Moran Cerf and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena (USA), have measured for the first time in real time the individual activity of neurons in this region in neurosurgery patients while showing them images on a computer screen. And have come to the conclusion thateach brain cell is associated with very specific objects or concepts.
Specifically, in his experiments Cerf identified thatwhen a volunteer was thinking about Marilyn Monroe, a specific neuron would light up. By showing the volunteers a series of up to 100 images associated with topics that they had previously indicated they were interested in, the team of scientists was able to identify specific neurons for a wide range of concepts, objects and characters: the Eiffel Tower, Bill Clinton , the tennis player Venus Williams, the group Guns N’Roses … With them, they say, one could builda database of each patient that would allow? read the minds of the subjects?observing the brain cells that are activated at each moment. This method could even be used to record and interpret people’s dreams, Cerf has proposed.
In addition, the brain-computer interface used in the experiments allowed individuals to “think” in overlapping computer images that were more or less visible and to get rid of those they did not like by increasing the activation rate of certain cells (those that perceived Marilyn Monroe in the experiment) while those of others (in this case, images of Michael Jackson) decreased. The patients were successful “deleting” one of the images 69% of the time, showing how the human brain is “capable of controlling the dominance of a stimulus,” according to Cerf.
