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Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=single-brain-cell-stores-single-concept

Once a brilliant Russian Neurosurgeon named Akakhi Akakhievitch had a patient who wanted to forget his overbearing, impossible mother.

Eager to oblige, Akakhievitch opened up the patient's brain and, one by one, ablated several thousand neurons, each of which related to the concept of his mother. When the patient woke up from anesthesia, he had lost all notion of his mother. All memories of her, good and bad, were gone. Jubilant with his success, Akakhievitch turned his attention to the next endeavor—the search for cells linked to the memory of “grandmother.”

Is it true?

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Carlo Alterego
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  • This is interesting... But how would he know what neurons would be correlated to the mother vs other things? – Cruril Jan 15 '13 at 21:52
  • @Cruril, I'm wondering the same thing. However it is difficult to say, maybe he known the patient's mother. – Carlo Alterego Jan 15 '13 at 21:59
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    This is a teaser to a paywalled article. There's a risk here that the body of the article actually gives appropriate context to this tall story. Have you purchased the article and checked further? – Oddthinking Jan 15 '13 at 23:47
  • @Odd, I don't sell money for crackpot articles, but I have a savings-account with a bank that tries to invest in good things only, providing a range of services to the fundraising for phylanthropic interest, thogh. However, thank you for the suggestion. – Carlo Alterego Jan 16 '13 at 02:52
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    The name "Akakhi Akakhievitch" practically screams "this story is fictional" to any Russian language speaker :) – Kreiri Jan 16 '13 at 08:19
  • @Kreiri, yes, but I'm Italian! However, please don't forget to vote up the question, if any or if the name is beautiful. – Carlo Alterego Jan 16 '13 at 09:54
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    Akaky Akakievich is a protagonist of Gogol's short story [The Overcoat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overcoat_(short_story)). Name is widely used to show comical or fictional characters (putting aside the direct references to Gogol) – default locale Jan 17 '13 at 04:29
  • @Cruril Plausibly by asking the patient about the mother during the surgery – user253751 Sep 11 '21 at 10:02

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A History of Neuroscience article titled Genealogy of the "Grandmother Cell" by Charles G. Gross (Princeton University) says that it's fictional, a tall tale: told by Jerry Letvin in 1969 as part of an M.I.T. course he gave.

The patient in the story was called Portnoy, whose Complaint was about his mother.

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