Researchers from the Harvard Medical School (HMS) claim that they have identified the region of the brain which deals with categorizing visual stimuli and familiar images such as socks, pants, shirts or any other extremely common item in everyday life.

The findings of the Harvard scientists are published in the Nature journal and show the particular area of the brain where neurons assisting the categorization of visual stimuli are found. These neurons appear to be situated in the parietal cortex region of the brain. Here is where brain cells concerned with encoding the meaning of familiar visual images lie. Therefore, the parietal cortex neurons help us learn and recognize the meaning of everyday things, as we are not born with the ability of identifying common things such as chair, sofa, comb etc. Instead, we learn through experience the images of things that we always see around us in everyday life.

David Freedman, PhD, Harvard Medical School Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Neurobiology and leader of the study explained:"It was previously unknown that parietal cortex activity would show such dramatic changes as a result of learning new categories. Some areas of the brain, particularly the frontal and temporal lobes, have been associated with visual categorization. Since these brain areas are all interconnected, an important next step will be to determine their relative roles in the categorization process."

The trial was conducted on a group of monkeys taught by researchers to play an easy computer game. Throughout the period when the animals played the computer game, the team monitored two areas of their brain: the parietal cortex and the middle temporal area. Results showed that the parietal neurons assisted the animals' decisions concerning visual patterns. On the other hand, the middle temporal area brain cells were not concerned with categorizing the images, but with the differences in the visual appearance of the motion patterns.

"This research helps to further the understanding of how the brain learns and recognizes the significance, or meaning, of visual images and demonstrates that learning new categories can cause dramatic and long-lasting changes in brain activity. We are continuing this work to determine if the parietal cortex is specialized for processing motion-based categories or if it plays a more general role in categorizing other types of visual stimuli, such as shapes, as well.

Understanding how the brain learns, stores, recognizes and recalls visual information will help us overcome impairments to these functions caused from brain damage and diseases, including strokes, Alzheimer's disease, and schizophrenia," Dr. David Freedman pointed out.