Fixed or flexible? Study shows vision-related neurons can rapidly switch codes

MedicalXpress | avr. 22, 2026

For many years, a dominant view in neuroscience was that neurons in the inferotemporal (IT) cortex—a critical center in the brain for the recognition of objects—represent the world through fixed tuning functions. Doris Tsao (BS '96), who has been studying how the brain processes visual information for her entire career, believed this to be a fact. But now, with a team of other scientists that includes recent Caltech graduate Yuelin Shi (Ph.D. '26), she has found evidence that the opposite is true.