Picture This? Professor Unveils Research On 'Jennifer Aniston Neuron' - Brain Function Described In Public Lecture, University Of Leicester

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 28 Oct 2008 - 11:00 PDT

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A leading neuroscientist and bio-engineer, whose research was recently cited among the top papers in the world, is to reveal details of his studies into what has been dubbed the 'Jennifer Aniston neuron' during a public presentation at the University of Leicester.

Professor Rodrigo Quian Quiroga discovered that a remarkable type of neuron in the brain fired in an 'abstract' manner to completely different pictures of familiar persons, for example Jennifer Aniston or Halle Berry.

He further discovered that given the firing of these neurons, it was possible to actually tell what the subjects were seeing far above chance - they were literally reading the mind.

Professor Quian Quiroga said: "One of the major scientific challenges of our days is to understand how information is represented by neurons in the brain. Although there has been spectacular progress in the last few decades, we are still far from comprehending, for example, how visual inputs are processed to create a conscious perception. Our main research interest is to study these principles of Neural Coding. Moreover, since complex behaviour is encoded by the activity of large populations of neurons, we are working on the development of advanced methods to extract useful information from these data."

Professor Quian Quiroga, of the Department of Engineering, will deliver his inaugural Professorial lecture on Tuesday 4 November. The lecture, The Jennifer Aniston neuron: How the brain perceives the world and forms new memories, is free and open to the public. It takes place in Lecture Theatre 1, Ken Edwards Building starting at 5.30pm.

Professor Quian Quiroga said: "I am examining how information about the external world (what we see, hear, touch) and our own internal representations (e.g. memories, emotions, etc.) is represented by neurons in the brain.

"For example, we can easily recognize a person in a fraction of a second, even when seen from different angles, with different sizes, colours, contrasts and under strikingly different conditions. But how neurons in the brain are capable of creating such an 'abstract' representation, disregarding basic visual details, is only starting to be known."

Professor Quian Quiroga will describe how his research has high clinical potential for the development of NeuroProsthetic devices, such as robotic arms driven by neural signals to be used by paralyzed patients.

Professor Quian Quiroga's discovery has far-reaching implications not only for the development of neuronal prostheses, but for treatment of patients with pathologies involving the hippocampal formation, such as epilepsy, Alzheimers and schizophrenia and for further understanding of how perceptions and memories are represented in the brain.

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga - Short Biography

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga graduated in Physics at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1993. After 2 years working at the Department of Physiology in the Institute for Neurological Investigations - FLENI, Argentina, and one further year at the Department of Epilepsy of the same institute, he moved to Germany and obtained his PhD in applied mathematics at the University of Luebeck in 1998. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Research Center Juelich, Germany, from 1998 to 2001 and from 2001 to 2004 he was a Sloan fellow at the California Institute of Technology, USA. He was appointed as a Lecturer in Bioengineering at the Department of Engineering of the University of Leicester in 2004, was promoted to Reader in 2006 and to a personal chair in 2008.

Dr. Quian Quiroga main research focus is on Neuroscience and the analysis of electrophysiological data. This research involves the use and development of advanced methods of signal processing. In particular, he developed an automatic method for processing the neural data that is currently used by several neurophysiology laboratories. The use of this method allowed the finding of a new type of 'abstract' (e.g. Jennifer Aniston) neurons in the human brain that was published in Nature, obtained the first prize at an international meeting in 2005 in Madrid and received world-wide media attention, including articles in the New York Times, Scientific American, Daily Mail, New Scientist, The Independent, etc. It has also been selected as one of the top 100 scientific stories of 2005 by Discover Magazine. In 2008, his follow-up work in this line of research was selected as one of the "Breaking news in Neuroscience" by the european Federation of Neuroscience Societies (fENS).

Dr. Quian Quiroga is a member of the editorial board of 3 international journals. He acts as reviewer for several international journals in the fields of Applied Mathematics, Physics, Signal Analysis, Clinical Neurophysiology and Neuroscience. He has given more than 30 invited lectures in the last 3 years, had published more than 50 refereed journal papers and currently holds 2 EPSRC grants, 1 MRC grant and 1 grant from the Royal Society. He is the head of the Bioengineering Research Group, at the Department of Engineering of the University of Leicester.

University Of Leicester

- A member of the 1994 Group of universities that share a commitment to research excellence, high quality teaching and an outstanding student experience.

- Named University of the Year by Times Higher (2008) Shortlisted (2006, 2005) and by the Sunday Times (2007)

- Ranked second to Cambridge for student satisfaction amongst full time students taught at mainstream universities in England

- Ranked as a Top 20 university by the Sunday Times, Guardian,Times and UK Complete University Guide, published in The Independent

- Ranked in world's top 200 universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong International Index, 2005-08 and the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings

- Ranked top 10 in England for research impact by The Guardian

- Students' Union of the Year award 2005, short listed 2006 and 2007

Founded in 1921, the University of Leicester has more than 20,000 students from 136 countries. Teaching in 18 subject areas has been graded Excellent by the Quality Assurance Agency- including 14 successive scores - a consistent run of success matched by just one other UK University. Leicester is world renowned for the invention of DNA Fingerprinting by Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys and houses Europe's biggest academic Space Research Centre. 90% of staff are actively engaged in high quality research and 13 subject areas have been awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level. The University's research grant income places it among the top 20 UK research universities. The University employs over 3,000 people, has an annual turnover of over £200m, covers an estate of 94 hectares and is engaged in a £300m investment programme- among the biggest of any UK university. http://www.le.ac.uk

Source
Rodrigo Quian Quiroga
Department of Engineering, University of Leicester
http://www.le.ac.uk/neuroengineering