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The Things that we Know
The so-called 'Grandmother Neuron' or 'Gnostic Cell,' refers to a group of neurons in the hippocampus and neighbouring sectors of the human brain which activate when a person sees, hears, or otherwise sensibly discriminates a familiar person, such as one's grandmother, be it in caricature, in costume, or any type of memory or suggestion of her.
Differing sets of hundreds or thousands of neurons activate each time we are made aware of someone we know or know of, and neuronal group firing occurs for each thing that we know as well. For each individual object or person, the same neurons fire each time. Confirmational experiments by Dr. Koch and colleagues utilized images, caricatures, and auditory representations of the actress Jennifer Anniston. |
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