Dictionary definition of “grandmother cell”

grandmother cell

n. a neuron that is said to fire when a person recognizes a single individual. Subjects: English, Biology, Body, Science

Editorial Note: This term is directly tied to a theory of neurology which posits that individual brain cells contain individual memories, as opposed to each memory being stored across a matrix of cells. Etymological Note: Jerome Lettvin is often credit with coining this term, but that has not been verified.

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Citations: 1975 Gunther S. Stent Science (Mar. 21) “Limits to the Scientific Understanding of Man” vol. 187, no. 4181, p. 1056: The Grandmother cell.…Should one suppose that the cellular abstraction process goes so far that there exists for every meaningful structure of whose specific recognition a person is capable (for example, “my grandmother”) at least one particular nerve cell in the brain that responds if and only if the light and dark pattern from which that structure is abstracted appears in its visual space…? 1983 Robert Walgate, Wallace Immen Globe and Mail (Toronto, Can.) (Apr. 1) “Stripes of the auditory cortex register tones somewhat like keys on a piano Brain ‘hears’ stereo sound” p. E10: In vision, the search for a “granny cell”—a cell that fired only when you saw granny (or some other such complex object)—proved fruitless, so we are probably not going to detect a “Bach cell” or a “Stravinsky cell” in the auditory cortex. 2005 Roxanne Khamsi Nature.com (June 22) “Jennifer Aniston strikes a nerve”: The brain would contain a separate neuron to recognize each and every object in the world. Neurobiologist Jerome Lettvin coined the term “grandmother cell” to parody this view, as it would mean that the brain contains a specific cell to recognize one’s own grandmother.

Posted 18 Jul 05 | Permalink | Tell a Friend