Faces recreated from monkey brain signals

Scientists in the US have accurately reconstructed images of human faces by monitoring the responses of monkey brain cells. The brains of primates can resolve different faces with remarkable speed and reliability, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. The researchers showed pictures of human faces to macaques and then recorded patterns of brain activity. The work could inspire new facial recognition algorithms, they report. In earlier investigations, Professor Doris Tsao from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and colleagues had used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans and other primates to work out which areas of the brain were responsible for identifying faces.