Smithsonian

Beauty of the Brain

This isn’t abstract art—it’s a representation of neural activity in a monkey’s brain. This part of the brain, called the visual cortex, is one of the first parts of the brain to receive information from the eyes. The visual cortex is tuned to simple shapes, like straight lines. The monkey was shown lines at different orientations, and the different colors represent bits of cortex that are particularly interested in a given type of line. Neuron clusters highlighted in green, for instance, are active when the monkey sees a vertical line; yellow neuron clusters are tuned to horizontal lines.

Courtesy of Yevgeniy B. Sirotin

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Photos from: "Beauty of the Brain" »