NYSCF – Robertson Neuroscience Investigator Discovers Brain Networks Relate Facial Information To Social Cognition
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NYSCF – Robertson Neuroscience Investigator Dr. Winrich Freiwald, The Rockefeller University, published his latest paper understanding how mammals make sense of faces in PLoS Biology. Faces convey an abundance of social information and Dr. Freiwald’s paper, for this first time, makes sense of how this information is exchanged between different brain regions. Brain areas that process facial information pass information to regions of the brain associated with social cognition. The research takes advantage of fMRI technology, which reveals brain activity by measuring changes in blood flow in the brain. Freiwald’s lab showed that areas of the brain associated with facial recognition are embedded in a larger brain network, which connects facial recognition to structures that support emotive, memory, and cognitive functions.