Every illusion has a backstage crew. New research shows the brain’s own “puppet strings”—special neurons that quietly tug our perception—help us see edges and shapes that don’t actually exist. When ...

A scientific dispute spanning six decades about fundamental mechanisms of visual perception in mammals has now been settled.

“Illusions are fun, but they are also a gateway to perception,” says Hyeyoung Shin, assistant professor of neuroscience at Seoul National University. Shin is the first author of a new study in Nature ...

Researchers have settled a 60-year-old debate in neuroscience, proving that the visual cortex constructs complex images from ...

The visual cortex is the part of the brain that enables visual perception. In this area millions of nerve cells, called neurons, process stimuli from the outside world. They only react when objects ...

Vision shapes behavior and, a new study by MIT neuroscientists finds, behavior and internal states shape vision. The research, published Nov. 25 in Neuron, finds in mice that via specific circuits, ...

Perhaps our most defining characteristic as a species, the six-layered human cortex, hosts billions of neural connections that bestow Homo sapiens with higher-order thinking. But how does this ...