Tag Archives: Andy Coghlan

“We’ve cracked the brain’s code for facial identity”



Surprising explanation for why face recognition matures unusually late in human development!

I didn’t expect to be reading this but I can recognize that this discovery seems to explain why face recognition is human cognitive ability that hits its peak surprisingly late in human development, and I’m now wondering how this fits into my theories about the relationship between my super-recognition and my synaesthesia, and that includes wondering how this discovery fits with my immune hypothesis of synaesthesia (which is all about pruning rather than proliferation), and of course I’m wondering how this fits in with what is known about super-recognizers. I guess I should just calm down and read the full text.

Coghlan, Andy Brain’s face recognition area grows much bigger as we get older. New Scientist. January 5th 2017.

Jesse Gomez, Michael A. Barnett, Vaidehi Natu, Aviv Mezer, Nicola Palomero-Gallagher, Kevin S. Weiner, Katrin Amunts, Karl Zilles, Kalanit Grill-Spector Microstructural proliferation in human cortex is coupled with the development of face processing. Science. January 6th 2017.



Wow, I just lost all respect for The Met





Beats me why people are designing a computer program to do stuff that a super-recognizer could do standing on their head

Why, why, why do people assume that we need computers to do clever and sophisticated things in face recognition and face perception? Our brains have evolved over millions of years to do this stuff, and some people are even better at this stuff than the amazing feats of visual perception that the average Joe can do with barely a thought or effort.


If Abraham Lincoln had Marfan syndrome, identifiable through his facial appearance, then I guess that means that the Australian politician who was identified as a Lincoln double on the TV show Insiders must have it too.


How many other politicians can you think of who could recycle that witty remark?

Jokes aside, its worth taking a look at the larger image of the group of faces in the magazine article, because they change in ways that I find quite fascinating and familiar. Which one do you think looks the most like Alfred E. Neuman? I think the right-edge lower row.


(I’m going to finish writing this post later)











Top of C3 theory post

A quote from New Scientist magazine about a study of microglia responding to changes in synaptic function in mice by Assistant Professor Beth Stevens and colleagues:

“Synapses were marked out for destruction through labelling with an immune chemical called C3”

Immune cells gobble up healthy but idle brain cells. 1 June 2012 by Andy Coghlan New Scientst. Magazine issue 2867. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428675.500-immune-cells-gobble-up-healthy-but-idle-brain-cells.html

A quote about her research at Prof Stevens’ professional web page:

“C1q and downstream complement proteins target synapses and are required for synapse elimination in the developing visual system.”

Beth Stevens, PhD, Boston Children’s Hospital http://www.childrenshospital.org/cfapps/research/data_admin/Site2674/mainpageS2674P0.html

A quote from Wikipedia about synaesthesia:

“This cross-activation may arise due to a failure of the normal developmental process of pruning, which is one of the key mechanisms of synaptic plasticity, in which connections between brain regions are partially eliminated with development.”

Wikipedia contributors Neural basis of synesthesia.  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 25 May 2012, 01:45 UTC, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neural_basis_of_synesthesia&oldid=494244732

A quote from Wikipedia about Benson’s syndrome or Posterior Cortical Atrophy:

“The disease causes atrophy of the back (posterior) part of the cerebral cortex, resulting in the progressive disruption of complex visual processing.

Wikipedia contributors Posterior cortical atrophy Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 4 February 2012, 22:34 UTC, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Posterior_cortical_atrophy&oldid=475033670

Two quotes by me from this blog:

“The idea that I have something like the opposite of Benson’s syndrome would neatly draw together all the elements of some odd phenomena that I have observed over a number of years…”

“I guess the million-dollar question is  – why does Benson’s syndrome affect only some specific parts of the brain? What is it about a certain group of areas of the brain that appear to make these areas prone to hyperconnectivity in some families, and vulnerable to dysfunction in Benson’s syndrome? Is there some magic chemical or process that regulates growth in these areas of the brain? I doubt that the answer could be so simple.”

The Opposite of Benson’s Syndrome? by C. Wright Am I a Super-recognizer? January 4, 2011. https://superrecognizer.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/the-opposite-of-bensons-syndrome/

My doubt has suddenly evaporated! Could complement be the “magic chemical”? Where’s my Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine?

The DOI link in the New Scientist article discussed above doesn’t work, but I’m quite sure this is the journal paper that the article is about:

Dorothy P. Schafer, Emily K. Lehrman, Amanda G. Kautzman, Ryuta Koyama, Alan R. Mardinly, Ryo Yamasaki, Richard M. Ransohoff, Michael E. Greenberg, Ben A. Barres, Beth Stevens Microglia Sculpt Postnatal Neural Circuits in an Activity and Complement-Dependent Manner. Neuron. Volume 74 Issue 4 691-705, 24 May 2012. 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.03.026 http://www.cell.com/neuron/retrieve/pii/S0896627312003340

A number of other interesting journal papers can be found through Prof. Steven’s web page, some available to read in full text (if you can find the button to click on in the top right corner of the PubMed page). I also found a recently published item by Stevens and colleagues that looks like it is about the same subject as the New Scientist article, published in a conference abstract supplement of the journal Schizophrenia Research, which is a bit of a mystery as I didn’t think the title suggested schizophrenia. You need to pay to read the full text, which I didn’t. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920996412700397

Here’s something else to read, if you’re keen. You can read the whole thing for free:

Marie-Ève Tremblay, Beth Stevens, Amanda Sierra, Hiroaki Wake, Alain Bessis and Axel Nimmerjahn The Role of Microglia in the Healthy Brain. Journal of Neuroscience. 9 November 2011, (45): 16064-16069; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4158-11.2011  http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/45/16064.long


C3, C4, C5....

C3, C4, C5….