# Mental imagery might depend on how "excitable" your neurons are

**URL:** <https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/mental-imagery-might-depend-on-how-excitable-your-neurons-are/50443>\
**Category:** Neuroscience, Psychology, and Health\
**Tags:** aphantasia, visualization\
**Created:** [May 6, 2020, 10:56pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/mental-imagery-might-depend-on-how-excitable-your-neurons-are/50443 "2020-05-06T22:56:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Josh](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/josh/32/21_2.png) [@Josh](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Josh)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 10:56pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/mental-imagery-might-depend-on-how-excitable-your-neurons-are/50443/1 "2020-05-06T22:56:12Z")

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> _ **Summary:** The strength of a person’s mental imagery is associated with excitability in the prefrontal cortex and visual cortex. Highly excitable neurons in the visual cortex may reduce a person’s ability to imagine mental images. The findings shed light on how aphantasia, a condition where a person can not imaging mental images, may occur._

**Full article:** [How strong is your mental imagery? It might depend on how ‘excitable’ your neurons are](https://neurosciencenews.com/mental-imagery-neurons-16345/)

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**Author:** ![bjoern.gumboldt](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/bjoern.gumboldt/32/16747_2.png) [@bjoern.gumboldt](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/bjoern.gumboldt)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 3:17pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/mental-imagery-might-depend-on-how-excitable-your-neurons-are/50443/3 "2020-05-07T15:17:24Z")

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@user\_7e here’s the original paper…

> **[Cortical excitability controls the strength of mental imagery](https://elifesciences.org/articles/50232)**
>
> Visual and prefrontal cortex excitability predict individual differences in visual imagery strength, and modulating excitability in these cortical regions causally alters the strength of visual imagery.

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**Author:** ![Finwing](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/finwing/32/11008_2.png) [@Finwing](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Finwing)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 8:25am UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/mental-imagery-might-depend-on-how-excitable-your-neurons-are/50443/4 "2020-05-08T08:25:27Z")

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That’s a very interesting article, thanks. Sounds pretty contraintuitive at first that a less active visual cortex gives clearer mental images and vice versa. I would have expected the opposite 🙂