CHNOPS
Loves amps
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- Jan 29, 2012
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Neuroscientists Battle Furiously Over Jennifer Aniston
by Robert Krulwich
Think of Jennifer, or as we like to call her, "Jen." Jen of the dazzling smile, Jen of the gorgeous chin, Jen with her hair down, Jen tousled, Jen as Rachel, Jen with Brad; Jen without Brad, Jen with Vince, Jen at the Oscars, and, of course, Jen as a neuron in the medial part of the temporal lobe.
Maybe you missed that last Jen.
A few years ago, a UCLA neurosurgeon named Itzhak Fried, while operating on patients who suffer from debilitating epileptic seizures, discovered what he now calls the "Jennifer Aniston Neuron."
...Fried asked his patients if they wouldn't mind doing a little exploratory science while on the operating table, and a bunch of them said yes. So he showed them a set of photographs, and he noticed when they came to a picture of Jen, very often a particular neuron would begin to flash, multiple times. When he showed these same patients pictures of Julia Roberts or random (not famous) people, or animals, or places, the neuron was quiet. Back to Jen? Back came the flash. He found this Aniston-specific brain cell in a number of people, and he wondered, what is going on?
Well, a flashing neuron is no big deal. That's what brain cells do. When a brain cell receives signals from other parts of the brain, the energy builds up, almost like a rising tide, and if the pressure gets strong enough, there's a release, a break, that is literally an electric flash. Neuroscientists call this a "spike" and they can see it (or with a tiny microphone, hear it) in a living brain. That's what Fried and his colleagues saw at UCLA.
The curious part was that there's a particular neuron devoted to images of Jennifer Aniston.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2...ntists-battle-furiously-over-jennifer-aniston
by Robert Krulwich
Think of Jennifer, or as we like to call her, "Jen." Jen of the dazzling smile, Jen of the gorgeous chin, Jen with her hair down, Jen tousled, Jen as Rachel, Jen with Brad; Jen without Brad, Jen with Vince, Jen at the Oscars, and, of course, Jen as a neuron in the medial part of the temporal lobe.
Maybe you missed that last Jen.
A few years ago, a UCLA neurosurgeon named Itzhak Fried, while operating on patients who suffer from debilitating epileptic seizures, discovered what he now calls the "Jennifer Aniston Neuron."
...Fried asked his patients if they wouldn't mind doing a little exploratory science while on the operating table, and a bunch of them said yes. So he showed them a set of photographs, and he noticed when they came to a picture of Jen, very often a particular neuron would begin to flash, multiple times. When he showed these same patients pictures of Julia Roberts or random (not famous) people, or animals, or places, the neuron was quiet. Back to Jen? Back came the flash. He found this Aniston-specific brain cell in a number of people, and he wondered, what is going on?
Well, a flashing neuron is no big deal. That's what brain cells do. When a brain cell receives signals from other parts of the brain, the energy builds up, almost like a rising tide, and if the pressure gets strong enough, there's a release, a break, that is literally an electric flash. Neuroscientists call this a "spike" and they can see it (or with a tiny microphone, hear it) in a living brain. That's what Fried and his colleagues saw at UCLA.
The curious part was that there's a particular neuron devoted to images of Jennifer Aniston.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2...ntists-battle-furiously-over-jennifer-aniston
Dragging this irrelevant shit into a fun thread about your brain on Jennifer Aniston . . .
