Articles tagged with Place Cells
Researchers at University College London discovered that Alzheimer's disease disrupts the brain's 'memory replay' process, leading to impaired navigation and memory loss. The study found that even when mice were resting, their brains replayed recent experiences in an altered pattern, which had consequences on memory tasks.
A new study from the University of Chicago suggests that patterns of activity in the brain continually reshape memories, even after learning has occurred. Researchers found that behavioral timescale synaptic plasticity (BTSP) is a key driver of this process, explaining the dynamic shifting of place cells in the hippocampus.
Researchers discovered that the activity of place cells in large spaces follows universal mathematical principles, challenging long-held assumptions about neural circuits and spatial cognition. The findings suggest that randomness is key to encoding information about experiences.
Researchers studied rats navigating an L-shape track with a food-guarding robot. The rats created neurological maps of places to avoid after experiencing negative events and thought about these locations even after leaving the area. This finding provides insight into the neuroscience of common psychological conditions like anxiety.
Researchers found that weakly spatial cells gradually correlate their activity with other neurons to form a mental map, stitching together individual locations. Sleep aids in this process, refining neural network activity and consolidating memories.
Researchers have found evidence for place cells in zebrafish brains, allowing them to create internal maps of their environment. The brain region, telencephalon, is also thought to be analogous to the mammalian hippocampus and plays a key role in spatial orientation, social networks, and memory.
Researchers have discovered a new type of brain cell in the medial entorhinal cortex that accurately predicts future locations as an animal travels. This discovery helps explain how planned spatial navigation is possible and has important implications for understanding mechanisms of spatial navigation and episodic memory formation.
Chickadees have unique neural barcodes that represent individual memories of caching food, which are distinct from place cells that trigger location-based responses. This discovery sheds light on how episodic memories are encoded in the brain and may have implications for understanding memory formation and storage.
Neuroscientists have improved understanding of how the brain creates a map of its environment by revealing the role of endocannabinoids in navigation. Activated place cells release endocannabinoids, which signal quickly and specifically, allowing animals to encode information about their location.
A new study reveals that astroglial cells, a type of glial cell, are essential for the integration of sensory information from a location, enabling spatial learning and memory. This mechanism involves the release of D-serine, which strengthens dendritic spikes, facilitating the recognition and storage of familiar places.
Researchers at the University of Bonn discovered that people with chronic epilepsy may have impaired dendritic integration, leading to less specific place cell firing and reduced ability to distinguish familiar from unfamiliar places. Administering a sodium ion channel inhibitor improved memory in animal models.
Scientists at Harvard Medical School have made a breakthrough in understanding how the brain forms spatial maps. A new study reveals that the gene Fos plays a crucial role in this process, helping the brain use specialized navigation cells to form and maintain stable representations of the environment. The findings provide new insights...
Researchers discovered that hippocampal place cells represent direction and distance to a goal in addition to current location. A vector field provides signal towards the goal, aiding flexible navigation.
Scientists at Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute have discovered that floods of calcium originating from within neurons can boost learning and recall. The finding sheds light on the mechanisms underlying learning and memory, potentially providing new insights into Alzheimer's disease.
A study published in Nature finds that neurons in the primary olfactory cortex learn to encode spatial maps by associating odours with locations, allowing animals to navigate and remember valuable resources. This discovery sheds light on how our brains process smells and spaces.
A new study using Egyptian fruit bats finds that mammals share a neural 'GPS system' representing near-future locations. The brain activity of bats showed strong correlation with their flight paths in the near future, but not at present.
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science used fruit bats to study navigation in an experimental setup that emulates their natural environment. They found that a single neuron can represent multiple place fields and that the size of each field changes according to location, resolving the discrepancy between traditional models.
Researchers at KIST Brain Science Institute and NYU discovered that hippocampus uses distinct information processing mechanisms to encode spatial information, including rate code and phase code. This understanding can improve diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders like Alzheimer's and amnesia, as well as inspire AI advancements.
A study from MIT neuroscientists has identified a hippocampal circuit that stores information about the timing of events, allowing mice to remember when to turn left or right in a maze. Disrupting this circuit impaired their ability to remember direction, but not location.
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a unique population of cells that record both time and place in the brain, allowing for enhanced memory recall. These findings could provide the basis for new treatments to combat memory loss from conditions such as traumatic brain injury or Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers at UCL have used laser beams to 'switch on' neurons in mice, showing how memories drive the brain's inner GPS system. The study uses an 'all-optical' approach to read and write activity in specific neurons, reactivating memories of a location where rewards were obtained.
A novel functional class of cortical neurons, known as holistic bursting cells, has been discovered to represent learned complex objects as wholes rather than parts. These cells exhibit a unique mode of high-rate, prolonged burst firing response to trained sounds, including chords consisting of multiple pure-tones.
Researchers found sets of cells in the hippocampus activated during similar types of experiences, such as trying new foods or visiting a restaurant. These 'lap-encoding cells' are distinct from memory cells that store specific locations and may help the brain interpret novel situations and learn new information.
Researchers developed a new technique to map three-dimensional forces between cells and their surroundings, shedding light on tissue formation, wound healing, and tumor spread. The method uses traction force microscopy and enables the analysis of multicellular clusters in unprecedented detail.
Researchers at University of California - San Francisco discovered how the brain generates imagined future scenarios, providing new insights into neurobiology of decision-making. Place cells in the hippocampus rapidly switch between present and possible paths, generating a 'menu' for other parts of the brain to make decisions.
Researchers used virtual reality to study how opioid-associated memories are made and found special neural mechanisms engaged by drug use. The findings suggest that these memories could be targeted for disruption to break the cycle of craving and relapse.
A study published in Environmental Research suggests that cell towers should be placed at least 500 meters away from schools, hospitals, and sleeping areas to reduce health risks. The existing laws in the US, however, do not consider environmental effects when siting cell towers.
A new study has found that artificial manipulation of brain signals can improve working memory in rats, with extended ripples capturing more information when learning a new place. The findings offer insights into the mammalian brain's mechanisms and may guide future treatments for memory disorders.
Grid cells in rat brain provide a 'treasure map' for goal-directed navigation by carrying information about goals, not just space. Their activity fields shift to follow the location of hidden rewards.
Researchers at IST Austria discovered that place cells in the hippocampus randomly replay memories of movement in open environments during sleep, following a pattern similar to Brownian motion. This finding suggests that the complex circuitry of the hippocampus generates an abstract representation of experience.
Researchers studied rats' brain activity while navigating an augmented reality environment, finding that their internal map of location is constantly updated on a minute-by-minute basis. This process, called path integration, involves the use of external landmarks and self-motion cues to estimate distance and speed.
Researchers used place cells to determine a rat's location and predicted its next move. The findings provide insight into how rats think about space and solve spatial memory tasks.
Researchers studied activity sequences in rats' place cells to understand memory consolidation. They found that nested theta sequences during movement are indispensable for sequence reactivations and memory formation during sleep.
Researchers suggest that humans think using their brain's navigation system, storing information in cognitive spaces. This theory combines evidence from place and grid cells, allowing the formation of mental maps of surroundings and reactivated during later visits.
Lisa Giocomo and Christopher Harvey, recognized for their novel insights into spatial perception and synaptic specificity of neural plasticity, have made strides in bridging molecular processes with cognitive function. Their work has the potential to provide new applications of tools and techniques in systems neuroscience.
Researchers have demonstrated the existence of grid-like activity in the human brain using electrophysiological evidence. Grid cells encode spatial positions evenly distributed across space, creating a honeycomb pattern that tiles the environment.
Researchers found that mouse memory cells, known as engram cells, are activated by context and episodes, rather than specific locations. This challenges the traditional view of memory storage in the hippocampus, suggesting a more complex role for the brain region.
Neuroscientists have found that distinct memories of similar events are represented by synchronous neuron activity, not remapping. The study used mice to explore this concept and discovered that co-firing neurons control memory discrimination, not changes in place cell fields.
A new study explores how our cognitive maps adapt to changing environments and reveals distinct connections between grid cells, place cells, and border cells. Researchers found that grid cells closer to the changing walls shift more than those further away, suggesting a non-homogeneous rescaling of the spatial metric.
Scientists discovered a sub-population of neurons in bats' brains that encode the specific location of other bats nearby. These 'social place cells' support the idea that our brains create a cognitive map not just of our location, but also one that includes social mapping.
Researchers have discovered that brain cells in the hippocampus process spatial information about both oneself and others. This 'buddy system' allows for joint location awareness, enabling rats to track each other's movements through a maze. The findings extend our understanding of the hippocampus' role as the brain's positioning system.
Researchers at German Cancer Research Center prove grid cells measure distances and enable path integration in mice, aiding spatial orientation. This innate behavior helps animals find the most direct route from A to C without learning or visual cues.
A new study in mice has found that disruptions to the brain's center for spatial navigation, known as internal GPS, result in severe memory deficits seen in schizophrenia. This discovery offers promising avenues for drug intervention and treatment, targeting a near-universal symptom of the disorder.
Researchers at LMU present a new theoretical model for the origin of grid cells in the brain, assigning a crucial role to the timing of signals from neurons called place cells. The model suggests that grid cells are generated through synaptic plasticity and transform temporal coordinated signaling into hexagonal patterns.
Researchers found that rats use local visual cues more than idiothetic cues when navigating through identical environments in darkness. Place cell activity indicated that animals were unaware of separate environments, suggesting reliance on visual cues over directional sense.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have discovered neurons in the subiculum area of the brain that encode an animal's current axis of travel. These 'axis-tuned' cells fire when the animal travels in either direction along a single line, allowing it to mentally group different locations and navigate complex routes.
Researchers found that rats' memories of reaching a reward play forward and backward in their hippocampus. The number of reverse replays rose with the size of the reward, while forward replays remained constant, suggesting different roles for each form of fast-motion simulation.
Researchers found that rats replay sequences in reverse when rewarded, suggesting the brain links rewards to paths. This mechanism may aid humans in recalling important details about their surroundings.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have successfully used acoustic tweezers to manipulate single cells in three dimensions, paving the way for precise 3D bioprinting of complex multicellular structures. This breakthrough could lead to new applications in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.
Researchers found that the horizontal canals of the vestibular system play a key role in sensing direction, with impaired brain activity affecting navigation. The study sheds light on brain cell responses to location and directional heading, with implications for understanding neurodegenerative diseases.
Researchers studied theta rhythm and grid cell function to better understand navigation. They found that velocity modulation conveys critical information for grid cell signal generation, suggesting a new understanding of the brain's inner GPS.
Researchers developed a new method to analyze neural activity, revealing an organized geometric structure in neurons. The study used clique topology and found similar structure in activities among place cells in different experimental conditions.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine discovered that the mammalian brain likely reconstructs memories in a way more like jumping across stepping stones than walking across a bridge. The study used electrode implants to track nerve cells firing in rats' brains as they planned their next move, revealing gaps between discrete memories.
The study identifies the retrosplenial cortex as a critical brain region for navigating complex environments, combining mapping interior and exterior spaces. The findings support computational modeling research and clinical observations of Alzheimer's disease, with potential applications in robotics and early disease detection.
Researchers monitored brain activity in rats and found that during rest, the hippocampus simulates walking to and from food that was previously inaccessible. This suggests that the hippocampus plans routes for the future as well as recording past experiences with motivational cues like food. The study could help explain why people with...
Researchers used virtual reality to investigate how humans navigate in the dark, confirming a similar navigation system to that found in rats. Participants performed tasks with varying enclosure sizes, showing consistent results with predictions from previous studies and rat experiments.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that mice use separate systems to determine their location and direction, with environmental cues influencing place recognition but not heading retrieval. The study used identical rooms with different markings on the north wall, which allowed researchers to isolate the two processes.
Researchers at Toyohashi University of Technology developed a novel cell-manipulation tool that can trap and release single cells in a parallel arrangement. The tool, consisting of hollow microprobes, works like micro fingers to pick up human cells.
A UCL study finds that realising how places connect geographically causes local maps in the brain to join, forming one big map. This merged map helps with planning future journeys by understanding absolute location and distances between places.
Research at University College London reveals that grid cells in the brain modify their patterns based on the environment's geometry. The study found that grid patterns align with the local environment and distort in trapezoid-shaped spaces, challenging previous theories about the brain's navigation system.