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Nature Neuroscience 11, 10–11 (1 January 2008) | doi:10.1038/nn0108-10

More than a feeling: sensation from cortical stimulation

Kristina J Nielsen & Edward M Callaway

Changes in neuronal firing underlie sensation, but how many neurons are needed to perceive these activity shifts? Two new studies in Nature suggest that the experimental modulation of only a few neurons can influence perception. We detect environmental stimuli by perceiving the activity modulation in some subset of the 21 billion neurons in our brains, and the quality of this sensation depends on which neurons change their activity. But how many neurons are required for perception?