Its still a mystery how the brain functions and converts raw data into meaningful ones? But now a team from the university's Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute reveals the detailed process in the journal Neuron. When a person looks at something the brains visual center is activated and tries to fit everything together like a puzzle. This is then converted in the form of an image, which the person observes and comprehends. Charles E. Connor, associate professor from The Johns Hopkins University says that is a very complex procedure.
Observing is not a simple task as a major portion of our brain is tuned to this task. The brain is involved in interpreting the different things around us and makes it look simple. The brain stores the necessary information that is needed and makes it look simple for u to interact with our environment.Vision occurs in the brain rather than the eye. It is a multi-stage process. Large number of neurons takes up the task of signaling, encoding and processing of the objects around us.
The study using the nerve cells present in the visual cortex of the macaque monkeys shows that neurons present at the higher-level initially respond to a visual stimulus. It signals to all the related neurons that can comprehend the particular stimulus or related stimulus. For example in case of an object, which has a concave shape on the top, a neuron that responds to all the objects like concavity on the top or bottom or convexity is triggered. After a few milliseconds the neurons begin to recognize the combination of the pattern. This can be compared to the artisan who initially bring together discrete shard of stained glass to produce a design.
The researcher says that humans come to a general conclusion in a tenth of a second this is based on recognizing one or two individual parts. It takes a longer time to recognize fine discrimination such as individual faces. This delay is due to the fact that time is required by the brain to assemble each and every signal and give shape to the object.
Further research has to be done on the understanding the other complex mechanisms of the brain such as a neural prosthesis to reveal the truths about memory and cognitive functions.
Still it is difficult to understand how the visual system accomplishes the processing of information. Mystery of how the brain interprets the meaning from the eye images.
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