Sparking the “Oprah neurons” (Image: Bill Davila / Rex Features)

Apparently not content with a talk show, a monthly glossy and, well, mega-stardom, Oprah Winfrey has also penetrated the human brain. When people see her picture or hear her name, specialised “Oprah neurons” fire away, new research suggests.

Other public figures shouldn’t be jealous. Our heads are also flush with cells attuned to Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry, and even Saddam Hussein.

The study of epileptic patients with electrodes implanted in their brains isn’t an investigation of our celebrity-obsessed culture. Rather, the research explains how distinct images and sounds of a person can trigger a general concept of them, says Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, a neuroscientist at the University of Leicester, UK.


“If I see my mother, I’m not just recognising my mother,” he says. “Many things are happening. I remember the last time I saw her; I remember what she looks like; I remember that I love her; I remember her cooking.”

Sight and sound

Four years ago, Quian Quiroga’s team made headlines when it reported the existence of neurons that fire at the sight of different pictures Jennifer Aniston, or in some cases her name spelled out on a computer screen.

To determine if these cells respond to visual cues only, or to information from other senses as well, Quian Quiroga and his colleagues added sound to their tests.

“If I said ‘Oprah’, the way this information is processed is completely different than if I showed you the name ‘Oprah’ [as text],” he says.

The researchers worked with seven patients with epilepsy that was untreatable drugs and who had electrodes implanted in their brains in order to hunt down the cells responsible for their seizures. Pinpointing the source of the disturbances allows surgeons to remove the area responsible and leave healthy parts intact. “If they go through surgery, the outcome is pretty good. In most cases they get cured without any major deficit,” Quian Quiroga says.

Whoopi too

While doctors waited to pin down these seizures, the team recorded hundreds of electrical signals from individual neurons in the medial temporal lobe. This large area includes a structure involved in storing and retrieving memories, the hippocampus (see an interactive map of the brain).

The researchers showed the patients pictures of celebrities or their names printed out, or they played a computer pronouncing their name. They also tested famous locales, such as the Eiffel Tower and the World Trade Center.

Many neurons – particularly those in the hippocampus – fired to specific concepts, whether of Oprah or a building, and for celebrities the neurons fired whether the stimulus was delivered through sight or sound. “It is important we have neurons doing this kind of abstraction, this is how we store memories,” Quian Quiroga says.

Yet “Oprah neuron” might be a misnomer. The same neuron also fired, albeit much more weakly, to Whoopi Goldberg in one patient. Similarly, Luke Skywalker neurons also responded to Yoda, and those famous Jennifer Aniston neurons flashed to her former Friends co-star Lisa Kudrow. Such connections could explain how our brain relates two abstract concepts, Quian Quiroga says.

Non-celebrity neurons

Hollywood stars and Jedi knights aren’t the only concepts with their own patches of neural real estate, of course. After a few days working with the patients – whom Quian Quiroga’s team members had never met before – neurons specific to the researchers also appeared. Rodrigo neurons, you might call them.

This suggests that these associations form quickly, but how long do they last?

“We don’t know and it’s a really interesting question,” Quian Quiroga says. “A patient I saw five years ago doesn’t need to remember all the things about me and maybe there aren’t as many neurons encoding me anymore.” Similarly, it’s easier to locate neurons for familiar people than less familiar people.

Though Quian Quiroga focused on brain cells piqued by sight and sound, he thinks that Oprah neurons and their ilk probably respond to information from other senses – if it’s specific enough.

A colleague of Quian Quiroga’s had the same thought. The scientist had served in the military and he remembered a fellow soldier who hadn’t showered in three years, telling Quian Quiroga: “You could smell him from a mile away. I’m pretty sure I had neurons devoted to this guy.”

Journal reference: Current Biology (DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.06.060)