2026年4月9日出版的《科学》杂志发表了科学家的一项最新研究成果。来自加州大学的D. Y. Tsao小组研制了人类腹侧颞叶皮层中感知和想象物体的共享密码。

该课题组确定，人类腹侧颞叶皮层（VTC）中大约80%的视觉反应神经元以分布式轴代码来表示物体。该课题组以代码为主题来重建物体并产生最有效的合成刺激。然后，当受试者想象特定物体时，该研究组记录了同一神经群的反应；大约40%的轴调VTC神经元重述了视觉代码。他们的研究结果表明，视觉图像是由参与感知的相同神经元的重新激活所支持的，这为人类VTC中存在生成模型提供了单个神经元的证据。

据了解，心理意象使他们能够记住以前的经历并想象新的经历。动物研究已经为视觉感知机制提供了丰富的见解，但视觉图像的神经机制仍然知之甚少。

附：英文原文

Title: A shared code for perceiving and imagining objects in human ventral temporal cortex

Author: V. S. Wadia, C. M. Reed, J. M. Chung, L. M. Bateman, A. N. Mamelak, U. Rutishauser, D. Y. Tsao

Issue&Volume: 2026-04-09

Abstract: Mental imagery allows us to remember previous experiences and imagine new ones. Animal studies have yielded rich insight into mechanisms for visual perception, but the neural mechanisms for visual imagery remain poorly understood. We determined that approximately 80% of visually responsive single neurons in the human ventral temporal cortex (VTC) use a distributed axis code to represent objects. We used that code to reconstruct objects and generate maximally effective synthetic stimuli. We then recorded responses from the same neural population while subjects imagined specific objects; about 40% of axis-tuned VTC neurons recapitulated the visual code. Our findings reveal that visual imagery is supported by reactivation of the same neurons involved in perception, providing single-neuron evidence for the existence of a generative model in human VTC.

DOI: adt8343

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt8343