Scientists Watch the Brain as it Watches Faces

Lead author of the paper, published Jan. 4 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is Ming Meng, a former postdoc in Sinha’s lab and now an assistant professor at Dartmouth College. Other authors are Tharian Cherian and Gaurav Singal, who  is a resident at Massachusetts General Hospital.

      Meng and company make some initial insights into how the left and right sides of the brain process faces. By watching the brain as the individual is shown a series of pictures that range from faces to near-faces, the scientists are able to observe actions in the brain that correlate to the pictures shown.  I wish I had access to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine as I would show these individuals more than just faces to get at how the Recognition of Resemblaces really works!  Exciting start.  Here are the links to the full story:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-brain.html

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-complexity-left-brainright-brain-paradigm.html