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- Glossary
Grandmother neuron
Reference to a now outdated model from learning psychology. The term was coined by Polish neurophysiologist Jerzy Konorski in the 1960s. He imagined that a specific cognitive process in the brain – such as thinking about one's grandmother – is always linked to the activity of one and the same neuron. However, scientists have since discovered that the whole process is somewhat more complicated: memories are generated by a spatial and temporal pattern of action potentials from different nerve cells.
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Glossar
15.03.2017
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- Glossary
Jennifer Aniston neuron
The neuroscientific granddaughter of the grandmother neuron: In 2005, Rodrigo Quian Quiroga and his team discovered nerve cells in the temporal lobe of epilepsy patients that reacted specifically to certain objects – such as a picture of actress Jennifer Aniston. The angle from which the photos were taken was irrelevant. These neurons are part of a network of neurons that together represent a concept. However, there are strong indications that these cells are responsible not only for a single concept, but for several.
