Scientists at the Allen Institute for Brain Research in the United States have found that 90 percent of neurons in the visual cortex of the brain do not work as previously thought, and the mechanism remains unexplained. This was announced in a press release on EurekAlert !.
The researchers analyzed the activity of 60,000 different visual neurons in mice while the animals looked at simple images, photographs and videos. It turned out that only 10 percent of nerve cells work according to the model proposed 60 years ago.
According to the version developed by Nobel laureates David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel, there are neurons that respond to specific types of images, such as a black bar or a dot on a white background. First, cells recognize certain fragments, after which high-level neural networks get a complete picture. This model became the basis for artificial neural networks designed for image recognition. However, it soon became clear that not all neurons correspond to the classical representation.
In the new study, about two-thirds of the neurons displayed more specialized behavior than neuroscientists predicted. The last third of nerve cells did not reliably respond to any of the visual stimuli, and their function remains unknown. According to scientists, this does not mean that the model is wrong, it just follows only a small population of visual neurons.
Experts plan to continue experiments to confirm whether a similar pattern is observed in other animals, including humans.