The Brain's GPS System

Written by
Elijah Lagman, Year 13

The advent of the information age and digital revolution sparked a development in the young growing field of neuroscience. Brain imaging devices, electronic detectors of different kinds of brain activity i.e. electric potentials of neurons in the scalp: Electroencephalogram (EEG), radioactive glucose detection of brain activity: Positron Emission Tomography (PET), and multiple x-rays at different angles of the brain: Computer Axial Tomography (CAT), to name a few, have allowed neuroscientists to study the living human brain as opposed to the traditional observation and dissection techniques in humans and animals post-mortem. Recently, modern neuroscience has received a new champion of research in the mysteries it actively tries to unravel.

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to John O’Keefe of University College London and the husband and wife team May-Britt and Edward Moser from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology for their discoveries of nerve cells in the brain (place and grid cells) that enable a sense of place and navigation. Not only does their work parallel modern technological advancement but it also informs us on how the brain can process complex tasks such as memory and their roles in the expression of behaviour.

Place cells

Place cells provide the brain with a spatial reference map system, or a sense of place (O’Keefe and Nadel, 1978). This means that a specific neuronal firing pattern is activated when in specific places. O’Keefe found this firing in the hippocampus, a part of the brain known to play a role in memory formation. O’Keefe employed a different technique to the traditional recording norm and recorded electrical activity in free moving animals. Results showed how the brain maps and remembers places it has been to.

Grid cells

Grid cells fire when the animal reaches particular locations arranged in a hexagonal pattern in the entorhinal cortex. The Mosers found that the distance of the grid fields varies in this cortex depending on distance to a certain location. They concluded that these patterns were part of a navigation integration system.

 O’Keefe and the Mosers then discovered numerous relationships between place cells and grid cells that led them to discover the emergent property of a sense of direction. These discoveries present a paradigm shift in our understanding of how specialized cells work together to execute higher cognitive functions. Hence, new studies on grid and place cells are now being further investigated not only for the brain’s “GPS” system but also for many other emergent cognitive processes that arise from these cells working together.

         We are learning more about how the brain works in performing these involuntary, subconscious functions. I think these discoveries have a moral lesson. We should value the importance of a team and the roles each individual plays in achieving a task. The brain doesn’t necessarily have a part that controls everything but with all of its specialized cells working together, the brain emerges as the ‘leader’ of other systems in the body. In other words, it seems that collectivism is more important than individualism in achieving higher goals, and with the digital age now upon us, we have a much more sophisticated way of efficiently sharing information.

Further reading:

·      More on Grid and Place cells and how the Nobel prize was awarded (pictures also came from here)
·      More on ideas of “emergence”, the idea that smaller less complicated functions can work together to achieve higher, more complex functions. http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notabene/emergent-properties.html http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/

·      More on neuroimaging and brain imaging techniques http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/f/functional_neuroimaging.htm

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1552-6569

Related Items Science