Scientists find how brain makes 3-D images

BALTIMORE, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they have discovered how the brain uses two-dimensional visual images on the retina to represent three-dimensional objects.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University trained two rhesus monkeys to look at images of three-dimensional objects on a computer monitor. At the same time, the researchers recorded the electrical responses of individual neurons in the inferotemporal cortex of the brain, a region of the brain near the ear in humans.

New three-dimensional shapes were created by a computer based on the strength of the responses of individual neurons.

The researchers found individual neurons selectively responded to images of objects having a specific three-dimensional shape, orientation and position -- a finding that supports classical theories of how we understand three-dimensional structures based on the two-dimensional images projected on our retinas.

The authors said the study could help explain why objects are seen as beautiful or unattractive.

"In a sense, artists are neuroscientists, experimenting with shape and color, trying to evoke unique, powerful responses from the visual brain," said Associate Professor Charles Connor, one of the study's authors.

The study that included Yukako Yamane, Eric Carlson, Katherine Bowman and Zhihong Wang appeared in the journal Nature Neuroscience.