杏吧原创

A MAP for other people鈥檚 faces has been discovered in the brain.

We already knew that our body parts are represented in the brain by different regions of neurons. These regions tend to preserve the basic spatial layout of the body: neurons that represent fingers are closer to neurons that represent arms than feet, say.

Now Linda Henriksson at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, has discovered that the same goes for other people鈥檚 faces. Her team scanned 12 people鈥檚 brains as they looked at images of facial features to see which areas became active. This revealed a region in the occipital face area in which features next to each other on a real face are organised together in the brain鈥檚 representation of that face. The team plans to explore differences between people鈥檚 face maps to see if they relate to their ability to recognise faces (Cortex, ).

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淥ther people鈥檚 faces, on the brain鈥�