New Delhi, India

In a new study, neuroscientists have found that the brain's same neurons get activated when they hear a person's name or pronouns like "he", "she" or "they".

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According to scientists, there are these so-called concept cells that store information regarding the representations of people, objects or abstract concepts.

It was observed that concept cells get activated when the picture of someone specific is seen or when they hear or read the person's name or when they recall a specific person from the memory.

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It has also been found that they get reactivated when the pronoun is used instead of the name of a person.

How was the study carried out?

The study was done on the basis of brain recordings taken from patients who suffered from intractable epilepsy. The electrodes were implanted deep inside their hippocampus to identify the origin of their seizures.

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These implants also helped the scientists study how individual neurons in the hippocampus work during wakeful activity.

The participants of the study were given a picture of Shrek, and it was noticed that a particular neuron got activated on seeing the photo.

When the participant read the book "Shrek and Courtney Love", the same neuron got activated on the appearance of the name "Shrek" and the pronoun "he" which was used to refer to the central character in the later part of the book. 

However, when the participants read the pronoun "she", the same neuron was not activated.

"We had the participants answer a question at the end of the sentences about who performed the action," stated neuroscientist Matthew Self, who is from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience.

"We could predict whether the patients would give the correct answer based on the activity of the individual concept cells," he further explained. 

The volunteers were also made to read sentences in which two characters shared the same pronouns. In such cases, it was observed that the person who evoked the most activity was identified with the pronoun later.

"This could be based on chance fluctuations in activity on a trial-by-trial basis or an internal preference for one of the two characters in the sentence," Self said.

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In the findings, it was observed that concept cells link the brain to the information of an already existing concept.

"For example, when we read about Shrek that 'he' put on sunglasses, we can update Shrek's representation and predict his future appearance," stated the authors of the study.

"Theories about the evolving mental representation of the narrative during reading suggest that previously read words are stored in working memory so that they can be combined with new information. How brain networks implement such syntactic computations is a topic for future research, which can now be investigated," they added.

(With inputs from agencies)