The work earlier had alluded to such cells, but Shane and his colleagues systematically show that they are not rare strange balls-it is a good and well-specific sub-population group. “What we did not know is that these neurons lead to completing the local style within the primary optical crust,” says Shin. “We have shown that these cells participate in a causal manner in the process of finishing the pattern that we are likely to participate in the cognitive process of fake mothers,” adds.
Behavioral tests are still coming
This does not mean that mice “saw” fake features when artificial neurons were activated. “We did not measure behavior in this study,” says Addisnick. “It was about nervous acting.” All we can say at this stage is that IC classification tools can stimulate the patterns of nervous activity that match what the photography shows during the natural perception of fake lines.
“The mice did not see them,” Shin admits, “because this technique included a relatively small number of neurons, for technical restrictions. But in the future, one can expand the number of neurons and also insert behavioral tests.”
These are the following limits, Adesnik says: “What we were doing is to stimulate these neurons and know if we can create an animal behavioral response even without any incentive on the screen.” Currently, optics can pay a small number of neurons only, and IC formatting tools are rare and relatively scattered. “At the present time, we only motivated a small number of these disclosures, mainly due to technical restrictions [of the visual system]But we can imagine an experience in which we recruit three, four, five, or even 10 times the number of neurons, “he says. In this case, I think we may be able to start obtaining behavioral responses. We definitely want this test.”
Nature Neuroscience, 2025. Doui: 10.1038/S41593-02-02055-5
Federica Sgorbissa is a scientific journalist. It is written about neuroscience and knowledge science of Italian and international outlets.