Posted on 07/28/2009 1:39:51 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Four decades ago, an MIT neuroscientist named Jerry Lettvin had a sudden inspiration about how our brains make sense of the world. What if each of us had a special set of neurons in our head whose only job was to recognize a particular person, place, or thing? It was a strange idea, but given what Lettvin knew about the brain, it was plausible. To describe his idea to his students, he made up a story [pdf].
The story was about Alexander Portnoy, the protagonist of Philip Roth's novel Portnoy's Complaint, which had just been published. The novel is a long monologue delivered by Portnoy as he lies on the couch of his psychoanalyst. In Lettvin's version, Portnoy instead decided to go to a neurosurgeon named Akakhi Akakhievitch. Dr. Akakhievitch had discovered 18,000 neurons in the human brain that respond uniquely to a person's mother. Since much of Portnoy's misery was caused by thoughts of his overbearing mom, Dr. Akakhievitch opened up his brain and removed all those mother cells.
After the operation, Dr. Akakhievitch tried a test. "You remember the blintzes you loved to eat every Thursday night?" he asked.
"They were wonderful," Portnoy replied.
"So who cooked them?"
Portnoy stared at him blankly.
(Excerpt) Read more at discovermagazine.com ...
http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ecggross/Neuroscientist_10_02.pdf
The Legend of Grandmother Cells Continues
July 23rd, 2009 12:01 PM by Carl Zimmer in Brains, Writing Elsewhere | 5 comments
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/07/23/the-legend-of-grandmother-cells-continues/
|
|
|||
Gods |
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Who’s “Grandma Esther?” I’ve heard of Aunt Esther.....
OK!! I clicked all the links, read the articles.... pic of old lady, cute line drawings, etc..where are the pics of Halle Berry????
Nope, I can't say she looks anything like Grandma Esther.......
Excellent timing! I just was going to post it. Thank you.
My pleasure. :’)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.