A special region of the brain's visual cortex, which is in charge of distinguishing between background and foreground images, called V2, is what makes brain cells remember things, according to a new study.

Neuroscientists at The Johns Hopkins University have demonstrated that nerve cells in V2 can "grab onto" figure-ground information from visual images for several seconds, even after the images themselves are removed from our sight.

"Recent studies have hotly debated whether the visual system uses a buffer to store image information and if so, the duration of that storage. We found that the answer is 'yes,' the brain in fact stores the last image seen for up to two seconds," said Rudiger von der Heydt, a professor in Johns Hopkins' Zanvyl Krieger Mind-Brain Institute, and co-author on the paper.

He also explained that the image, which the brain grabs and holds onto momentarily is not detailed, and is more like a rough sketch of the layout of objects in the scene.

This may partly explain how the brain creates a stable visual world for us when the information coming in through our eyes changes at a rapid-fire pace-up to four times in a single second.

The study was based on recordings of activity in nerve cells in the V2 region of the brains of macaques, whose visual systems closely resemble that of humans.

Located at the very back of the brain, V2 is roughly the size of a wristwatch strap.