Varun Wadia

Researchers wanted to understand how memory and imagination work together in the brain.

Varun Wadia of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Caltech says it takes both functions to accomplish something people do every day.

I can look at an object in the world around me, but I can also close my eyes and imagine the object.

So Wadia and a team studied the activity of more than 700 neurons in 16 people.

The scientists found that the same neurons that fire when someone looks at an object also fire when a person imagines that object.

The finding supports earlier evidence from brain scans suggesting that seeing and imagining activate the same circuits.

John Hamilton, NPR News.

And I'm Giles Snyder.