When what you see doesn’t make sense

The brain may have a built-in way to quickly settle disagreements between regions processing the same scene. Researchers found that matching signals between two visual areas lasted longer, while conflicting signals rapidly faded away. This “consensus building” mechanism could help explain how the brain turns many specialized inputs into one unified view of the world.

When what you see doesn’t make sense, your brain does something remarkable. Stebbins Fellow Mitra Javadzadeh and collaborators have developed circuit models of the primary visual cortex (V1) and lateromedial visual area (LM) in the brain’s neocortex. These models allowed the team to map and predict neural activity in response to different visual stimuli.

A shadow can briefly resemble a face, or one object can momentarily be mistaken for another. New research suggests that the brain may resolve these visual conflicts by allowing different regions to compare their interpretations until a more consistent picture emerges. In a study published in Nature Neuroscience, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cynthia R.