Aphantasia as a functional disconnection

Abstract

Recent brain imaging research helps explain how people with aphantasia can remember what things look like without being able to picture them mentally. Scientists used brain scans to study what happens when people with aphantasia try to form mental images. They found that the visual parts of the brain still activate normally, but there's less communication between a key visual area (the fusiform imagery node) and the brain regions responsible for conscious awareness in the front of the brain. This reduced connection may be the neural basis for aphantasia. The researchers suggest this disconnection explains a puzzling aspect of aphantasia: how people can have accurate memories for what objects look like and recognize them perfectly well, even though they can't consciously experience mental images. Essentially, the visual information is being processed and stored properly in the brain, but it's not reaching the areas that create conscious visual experiences. This research builds on work showing that the left prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role in visual awareness, suggesting that when this area doesn't communicate effectively with visual processing regions, you get the aphantasia experience—intact visual memory without the subjective experience of "seeing" in your mind's eye.

Authors

• Jianghao Liu10
• Paolo Bartolomeo11

Aphantasia as a functional disconnection

Abstract

Recent brain imaging research helps explain how people with aphantasia can remember what things look like without being able to picture them mentally. Scientists used brain scans to study what happens when people with aphantasia try to form mental images. They found that the visual parts of the brain still activate normally, but there's less communication between a key visual area (the fusiform imagery node) and the brain regions responsible for conscious awareness in the front of the brain. This reduced connection may be the neural basis for aphantasia. The researchers suggest this disconnection explains a puzzling aspect of aphantasia: how people can have accurate memories for what objects look like and recognize them perfectly well, even though they can't consciously experience mental images. Essentially, the visual information is being processed and stored properly in the brain, but it's not reaching the areas that create conscious visual experiences. This research builds on work showing that the left prefrontal cortex plays a crucial role in visual awareness, suggesting that when this area doesn't communicate effectively with visual processing regions, you get the aphantasia experience—intact visual memory without the subjective experience of "seeing" in your mind's eye.

Authors

• Jianghao Liu10
• Paolo Bartolomeo11