The work, published in the journal Current Biology Jan. 10, provides early evidence that the brains of people with aphantasia can light up as if they were generating mental images in their primary visual cortex — the main part of the brain responsible for processing visual information. However, these signals may be getting lost in translation.

The new research suggests that the signal "warps or stretches" before it is perceived consciously by the person with aphantasia, study co-author Joel Pearson, a professor of psychology at the University of New South Wales in Australia, told Live Science.