THE GRANDMOTHER NEURON

"A decade and a half ago, a joke went around the profession about the grandmother neuron. If there are brain cells that fire up at the sight of a table, is there a cell sitting sweetly in a quiet corner of your brain that responds only to your grandmother? Are there, at any rate, feature detectors devoted to various parts of your grandmother her hand, her nose, her eyes, the little handbag with her initials on it? 'Well,' says Bharucha cautiously, 'at least there might be a cell that registers handbags in general.