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Study Shows How Human Shapes and Body Parts Evoke Powerful Brain Reactions

 Formfees 20/01/2025

Researchers from KU Leuven and UZ Leuven have been able to directly record in humans how brain cells respond to visual stimuli, something that until recently was only possible in laboratory animals. This allowed them to determine that the brain areas studied respond more strongly to images of bodies than to images of other objects.

In general, scientists have few opportunities to study the human brain directly. Imaging, such as EEG or a brain scan, is of course possible, but it does not provide insight into the reactions of individual brain cells.

However, a collaboration between KU Leuven and UZ Leuven makes it possible to examine the brain directly. The research is performed on epilepsy patients for whom medication does not provide relief and who are therefore eligible for brain surgery. In order to track down the origin of the attacks, neurosurgeons from UZ Leuven place depth electrodes and small microelectrodes (from Blackrock Neurotech) in the brain.

“This gives us a unique opportunity to study specific brain activity and properties for two weeks,” says neuroscientist Peter Janssen (Laboratory for Neuro- and Psychophysiology / KU Leuven Brain Institute). “In this study, we had the patients look at different types of images, of human bodies, animals, faces and other objects, and we recorded the responses of hundreds of individual brain cells.”

The research, published in PNAS , shows that brain cells respond much more strongly to images of bodies than to images of other objects. The responses were pronounced for human bodies and body parts such as hands and feet. The same brain cells also appeared to respond to abstract stick figures.

Tom Theys, epilepsy surgeon at UZ Leuven and chair of the focus group Brain-Computer Interfaces (LBI – KU Leuven Brain Institute) : “The implantation of depth electrodes has been going on for some time, but now we are also placing very fine micro-electrodes to measure brain activity. With AI algorithms, we can use the electrical responses of cells at the back of the head to determine what a patient has seen at a certain moment, whether this is a certain object, face or body. Such accurate mind-reading is not possible with classic electrodes. In this way, we can better understand normal brain functions, but also epilepsy.”

Knowledge for medical innovation

“It is important to be able to confirm in this way that the earlier indications based on imaging and animal testing appear to be correct,” says Professor Janssen. “Moreover, better knowledge of the brain is crucial to enable medical innovation.”

“I am thinking, for example, of brain-machine interfaces: technology that connects the brain to an electronic device or computer. People who are paralyzed as a result of a spinal cord injury can control a computer with their thoughts. Visual implants for blind people will hopefully no longer be science fiction in the long term. There is great dynamism in this field of research, particularly in the US, think of Elon Musk’s Neuralink, but in Leuven too we are succeeding in making important contributions.”

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