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摘要

Our brains decipher a wealth of sights, sounds and other sensory information to allow us to make sense of our environment. But interpreting sensory inputs isn't always straightforward, as anyone who has stared at the infamous 'young girl-old woman illusion knows. Hendrikje Nienborg and Bruce Cumming, working at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, have now discovered that the brain 'tampers' with the signals it receives to favour one interpretation over another. rnSignals from sensory organs activate sensory neurons, which in turn relay those signals to the brain areas that decode them and act upon the information provided. Researchers have known for more than a decade that the activity of sensory neurons varies not only in response to a particular stimulus, but also according to how the brain ultimately interprets that stimulus. "Imagine you are walking in thick fog, looking for a friend wearing a green leather jacket," says Nienborg, who was a postdoc in Cumming's lab before moving to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.