Explicit Encoding of Multimodal Percepts by Single Neurons in the Human Brain
Abstract
Different pictures of Marilyn Monroe can evoke the same percept, even if greatly modified as in Andy Warhol's famous portraits. But how does the brain recognize highly variable pictures as the same percept? Various studies have provided insights into how visual information is processed along the ''ventral pathway,'' via both single-cell recordings in monkeys and functional imaging in humans. Interestingly, in humans, the same "concept" of Marilyn Monroe can be evoked with other stimulus modalities, for instance by hearing or reading her name. Brain imaging studies have identified cortical areas selective to voices and visual word forms. However, how visual, text, and sound information can elicit a unique percept is still largely unknown. By using presentations of pictures and of spoken and written names, we show that (1) single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) respond selectively to representations of the same individual across different sensory modalities; (2) the degree of multimodal invariance increases along the hierarchical structure within the MTL; and (3) such neuronal representations can be generated within less than a day or two. These results demonstrate that single neurons can encode percepts in an explicit, selective, and invariant manner, even if evoked by different sensory modalities.
Additional Information
© 2009 Elsevier. Received 9 March 2009; revised 13 May 2009; accepted 5 June 2009. Published online: July 23, 2009. Available online 23 July 2009. We thank E. Behnke, T. Fields, A. Postolova, and K. Laird for technical assistance. This work was supported by grants from NINDS, EPSRC, MRC, the NIMH, DARPA, and the Mathers Foundation.Attached Files
Accepted Version - nihms261113.pdf
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC3032396
- Eprint ID
- 15357
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.cub.2009.06.060
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20090827-115206830
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
- Medical Research Council (MRC)
- National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
- G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation
- Created
-
2009-09-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Koch Laboratory (KLAB)