FAQ: Behavioral specialization of Neurons

8 facts about groups of neurons that are activated in specific situations

Behavioral specialization neuron is a phenomenon, which can be described as follows: whenever any living organism that does something, some of the neurons that are in his head, begin to be activated or to generate action potentials, what is often called the electrical signals in the brain.
The fact that our brain is composed of neurons, it was known long ago, as well as the fact that these neurons are not always active, and active with some specific laws. In the early 70s there was an opportunity to study patterns of neural activity in the real behavior of living organisms, that is not when they are euthanized or dead, and when they are able to perform the usual types of actions or behavior or something taught.

• 1.Neurons of places

It turned out that you can find neurons whose activity is strongly correlated with the running movement or action in animals. For the first time the phenomenon of behavioral specialization in neurons has been described at the beginning of the 70s. Then Dostrovskim O'Keefe and so-called "place cell" have been described. These investigators have shown that, if the animal to release some space, for example put in a box, it will naturally move in this box. But there are places, the passage through which is the activity of certain neurons. More precisely, it is impossible to formulate that pass through a particular place is the activity of neurons, so we can not say that neuronal activity causes a passage through a certain place. This phenomenon is a clear correlation between the activation and the finding of a neuron in a specific place of the animal space. These neurons are called neurons place. Similarly, neurons can be described like a place a person if you go for some familiar street, are in a certain part of the city, you can discover the neurons whose activity is associated with certain places.

• 2.The phenomena of neuronal activity

Approximately at the same time in the early 70s, Renca other neurons associated with a variety of animal behavior effects have been described. For example, he described the neurons that were activated at the moment when the rat, on which he experimented, drank water from a special drinking bowls, and the moment the animal touches the drinker this was the moment associated with the activation of certain neurons. With the technical possibilities to record the activity of neurons in the actual behavior it proved that there are a lot of very interesting phenomena of neuronal activity due to the behavior. For any action which is performed live organisms, any skills that they have, is the activation of certain cell groups. If we sit at this moment we have activated groups, which are connected with the provision of our body.

• 3.The phenomenon of loss of neuronal activity

The activity of these cells later found out not only at the time of execution of actions, but also some other things that might be called "moments of doing nothing." For example, carried out registration of neuronal activity in an animal, which comes to the end of the corridor, turns, sits motionless, before you go in the opposite direction can be, sitting and washes. It turned out that in such moments occur reproduction activity of the neuronal groups that have been involved in carrying out the types of behavior that is performed before or after will perform this. This phenomenon has been called "replay", or "loss or reproduction of neuronal activity." Thus, it appears that there are groups of neurons that are activated not only in those moments when we perform actions, but also in the intervals between the acts.

At the moment we know very many examples of behavioral specialization of neurons not only in animals but also in humans. Experiments on humans are possible when the implantation of electrodes into the brain due to specific medical indications. In such cases, it is possible to record neuronal activity and scientific purposes.

• 4.Neurons of Jennifer Aniston

In the 2000s, a series of interesting articles in which the registration was made of neurons in humans, which are shown photos of celebrities. Patients were observed in which neuron was activated only at the moment when the picture was presented by Jennifer Aniston. These experiments rocked the scientific world and the pseudo-scientific community. Initially, researchers thought that matters is how to make this photo: blue background, which shows Jennifer Aniston, or some other physical characteristics of the image. But the re-presentation of a variety of pictures of Jennifer Aniston, taken from different angles, with different hairstyles and other changes in the details, showed that the neuron was activated, regardless of the manner in which the actress appears. And it became clear that it is an abstract idea of Jennifer Aniston. Next to other celebrities photos has been demonstrated that, even if just to show the inscription, the name and the name of a celebrity, the neuron still activated.

• 5.Neurons in Mice nest

Similar phenomena have been, for example, reported in mice. Naturally, they do not impose photos Jennifer Aniston, and what is more important for them. For example, neurons in mice nests were demonstrated. Mice were small caps of different sizes. In some of these special characters, you can make a nest. And some are too large to be perceived as a nest. Some, on the contrary, too small, and the mouse will not fit there. These experiments show quite clearly that an animal approaching a lid, which identifies it as a socket, demonstrates that there neurons whose activity clearly coincides with the moment. If it does not lose the registration of the same neuron, but bring some other cover, which is not in its understanding of the socket, such a situation will not happen. The authors called their work "Neurons nest concept." That is, use the word "concept" to describe some human qualities and capabilities in mice.

• 6.On what can specialize neurons?

In a sense, we can say that the phenomenon of behavioral specialization of the neuron is connected with certain concepts, images and so on. But, on the other hand, it can be shown and simpler neurons that are connected only with the seizure of the object by hand, with a film viewing, with memories of the film.

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We can not say that there is a memory of the neurons, and the neurons have a "no memory", because all that we know and can do - it is in a sense, it is our memory. But neurons can be very different. The phenomenon of behavioral specialization is connected with the fact that all behavior can be found a group of neurons. The interpretation of what is still respond to a specific group of neurons is much more complicated than a demonstration of the activity of a group of cells. You can find neurons whose activity is associated with the action, and with the memory of some action. At the same time it is possible to find and to show neurons whose activity is linked, for example, only the implementation of an action. The story, or declaring that I am able to perform a certain action, it is likely, and may include some other group of neurons.

The existence of this phenomenon involves, among other things, that when we register certain groups of neurons in the brain activity, we are able to establish that currently makes a living organism, whose neural activity we are seeing. If we do not look at myself living organism, but only on a neuronal activity, and if we determine that certain cell activity associated with the finding of the body at a certain point in space or performing a certain action, then we can say that he is now It is making, which is where he was.
In neuronal activity can be expected to say what one thinks. To do this, we initially wanted to establish which it has neurons and what is connected with their activity. If we had the opportunity to record a huge amount of cells (and we have 1011 neurons), we could establish that some neurons are activated in some certain kinds of human behavior, while others are activated in other types of behavior. Then, observing only the activity of his neurons, we could say that he loses a certain episode from his life. there is experimental evidence for such an assertion.

• 7.Neuron of Simpsons

For example, to register with the neurons in humans when watching certain movies. It turned out that was recorded neuron activity that occurs only at the time when the patient was looking cartoon Simpsons. An additional interesting point, which was recorded by these researchers was the fact that when patients were asked to recall the videos that he looked, and he called a few movies, at some point he would say: "Yes, and there were" The Simpsons "," - and the activity of certain neurons begin even for some number of milliseconds before he reported that he remembers that he was shown a video clip. Thus, it was possible to ascertain what he was going to say. The totality of the data suggests that the registration of neuronal activity at some point we would like to read what a person thinks

• 8.The ability to read human thoughts

The fact that we can read a person's thoughts, reading the activity of his neurons, in theory there are no contradictions, we could do it. In practice, the experiments in this direction is carried out quite a large number. But the era of such opportunities have not yet occurred. What we can read a person's thoughts, reading the activity of its neurons, is currently unproven. It's a good guess, but it needs to be checked. Among other things, it raises a lot of very interesting questions from the field of psychology: "What is thinking", "What is thought", "What is it can be expressed? ',' Can we call the thought activity of any group of neurons?" "How are neural group?". We can assume that they are formed in the learning process. But the details of how they are created and patterns of how they arise, we do not know.