Did you know that we’ve been studying the expanses of outer space longer than our own brains?! The term neuroscience was coined barely a century ago, proving how little we know about the 3 pound supercomputer within each and every one of us … as I started reading background literature, I became hooked! I found it incredible the way the brain stores the people, places, and items we see everyday like shelved books in a library. Everything is so expertly categorized while also allowing the brain to make connections between related concepts (Ex: Cat and Dog). It’s crazy to think that of the brain’s immense processing power, close to half of it is dedicated singularly to processing vision! … Overall, there were many fascinating things I learned from my research. First off, the brain prioritizes scenes over objects when it comes to visual recognition. The brain uses a heuristic approach to guess what objects may be present using the scene. For example, “If there’s a beach maybe there will be a beach ball.” Therefore, scenes were far more significant towards familiarity than objects. Another significant finding related to the visual cortex processing pipeline. Past studies assert that memory interfacing does not occur in the lower levels of the visual cortex. However, both this year’s study and last year’s studies show significant evidence that lower stages of the visual cortex actually participate in high-level processes. Some examples are short-term memory and mental imagery.

Read More

• Biology
• Medicine