Shortly after birth, both naïve animals and newborn babies exhibit a spontaneous attraction to faces and face-like stimuli. While neurons selectively responding to faces have been found in the inferotemporal cortex of adult primates, face-selective domains in the brains of young monkeys seem to develop only later in life after exposure to faces. This has fueled a debate on the role of experience in the development of face-detector mechanisms, since face preferences are well documented in naïve animals, such as domestic chicks reared without exposure to faces. Here, we demonstrate that neurons in a higher-order processing brain area of one-week-old face-naïve domestic chicks selectively respond to a face-like configuration. Our single-cell recordings show that these neurons do not respond to alternative configurations or isolated facial features. Moreover, the population activity of face-selective neurons accurately encoded the face-like stimulus as a unique category. Thus, our findings show that face selectivity is present in the brains of very young animals without preexisting experience.

中文翻译：

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家养年轻雏鸡大脑中与生俱来的面部选择性


出生后不久，幼稚的动物和新生婴儿都会表现出对面部和面部类似刺激的自发吸引力。虽然在成年灵长类动物的颞下皮层中发现了选择性地响应面孔的神经元，但年轻猴子大脑中的面孔选择域似乎只有在接触面孔后的晚年才会发展。这引发了关于经验在人脸检测器机制开发中的作用的辩论，因为在幼稚的动物中，例如在没有接触面孔的情况下饲养的家鸡，面部偏好得到了很好的记录。在这里，我们证明了一周大的幼鸡幼雏的高阶处理大脑区域中的神经元选择性地对类似脸的配置做出反应。我们的单细胞记录表明，这些神经元对替代配置或孤立的面部特征没有反应。此外，面部选择性神经元的群体活动准确地将面部样刺激编码为一个独特的类别。因此，我们的研究结果表明，面部选择性存在于没有先前经验的非常年轻的动物的大脑中。