Articles tagged with Place Cells
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Researchers discovered that the nucleus prepositus plays a crucial role in generating head direction signals, in addition to its function in eye movements. The study's findings have significant implications for understanding our sense of spatial orientation.
A Dartmouth study reveals that grid cells in the entorhinal cortex play a crucial role in generating the signal for spatial navigation. The findings contribute to our understanding of how we update our spatial perception as we move through our environment, which is essential for navigating and survival.
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that rats can create a unique map for every environment, allowing them to remember distinct locations without mixing up similar events. This discovery sheds light on the brain's storage capacity and memory organization.
Researchers at University of California, San Diego, have removed the brain area responsible for spatial navigation in rats, showing that other memory abilities remain intact. The study provides insights into Alzheimer's disease and stroke effects on the brain's navigational system.
Researchers at Northwestern University discovered that activity in dendrites is crucial for storing memories, contradicting current thought that cell body and dendrites serve the same function. The study used high-resolution microscopy to image individual neurons in a living animal navigating a virtual reality maze.
Neuroscientists at the University of Texas at Austin found that neurons in the brain tune into different frequencies of gamma waves for various spatial memory tasks. The research suggests that fast gamma waves promote encoding of recent experiences, while slow gamma waves support memory retrieval.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that brain activity in place cells helps construct cognitive maps, a pattern of activity reflecting an animal's internal representation of its environment. This activation can mark the birth of a memory, as seen in rats who pause to inspect their surroundings and create new place fields.
Researchers at MIT have discovered a link between abnormal brain waves and schizophrenia symptoms in mice. The study found that mice lacking the brain protein calcineurin exhibit hyperactive brain-wave oscillations during rest and impaired mental replay, mirroring some schizophrenia symptoms.
A research team identified a new type of cell in the brain that helps people navigate unfamiliar environments through path integration. Grid cells allow the brain to keep track of navigational cues and maintain a sense of location.
Researchers used virtual reality to study how brain cells create maps of the world, revealing that environmental cues such as smell and sound play a major role in activating these cells. The findings provide new insights into how the brain learns and makes memories.
Scientists track Egyptian fruit bat flights using miniature wireless devices and find that place cells respond to spherical volumes of space, suggesting uniform perception of all three dimensions. The study provides new insights into navigation, spatial memory, and spatial perception.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine discovered that the rat's hippocampus uses remembered spatial information to imagine routes, guiding behavior. This finding has implications for understanding memory and imagination in people with Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline.
Scientists use a novel technique to identify which neurons communicate with place cells, revealing the brain's sense of location is created by multiple specialized cell types. The study provides new insights into how cells in the hippocampus process and integrate sensory information.
Dartmouth researchers investigate nerve cells that establish spatial navigation, using microelectrodes to record activity in rat brains. Head direction cells and place cells work together to provide an overall sense of location and direction.
Researchers blocked learning from past experiences in rats, impairing memory-guided decision-making. Awake mental replay is critical for linking immediate and earlier past experience to the reward.
New research finds that hippocampal neurons encode every sequential moment in a series of events, bridging gaps between discontiguous events. The activity of these 'time cells' signals the timing of key events and can differentiate between different types of sequences.
Researchers found that rats' place cells behave like new environments when they don't explore, highlighting the importance of direct experience in creating stable episodic memories. This discovery translates to humans, where recalling past experiences relies on autobiographical memory and direct recollection of events.
Scientists studied brain cells in rats and found that only place cells were sensitive to height, with weak responsiveness. The brain's sense of space is more accurate in horizontal directions, suggesting a flat map of space for altitude.
Biologists at UC San Diego discovered that electrical oscillations are critical for the brain to store spatial memories. Grid cells in the entorhinal cortex require precise timing of electrical oscillations to function properly, suggesting a key component in memory processing.
Researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory found that some neural sequences in mice' brains that fired during a novel experience had already occurred before the animal rested. This phenomenon, called preplay, helps encode related experiences occurring in the future.
Scientists have found 'grid cells' for the first time outside of the entorhinal cortex in the rat brain, expanding our knowledge of how the brain generates internal maps. These grid cells work together with other neural cells to create a series of maps that help with navigation and recognition of specific landmarks.
The study reveals that rodent brains contain working navigational neurons from birth, with different cell types maturing over time. This finding suggests that the sense of direction may be innate, but experience also plays a role.
The study identified path cell neurons in the entorhinal cortex that encode travel direction during navigation. These neurons work together with place cells to help people remember directions and navigate to destinations.
Research by Caltech scientists shows that theta oscillations sweep across the hippocampus as traveling waves, not a synchronized pulse. This finding challenges long-held assumptions about spatial information representation in rat brains and has significant implications for understanding memory formation and transmission.
Researchers have discovered that our brains contain a built-in navigation system, much like satellite navigation, with in-built maps, grids and compasses. The hippocampus is the key area responsible for learning, memory and navigation, which becomes more refined and powerful in London taxi drivers over years of experience.
O'Keefe's discovery of place cells revolutionized the field of cognitive neuroscience, enabling animals to navigate complex environments. His research has also shed light on Alzheimer's disease, revealing a deterioration in spatial information content in aged mice.
Scientists from Berlin developed a theoretical model that shows how an orientation map develops in the brain, allowing for the emergence of place cells and head direction cells. The model analyzes realistic image data to extract information relevant to orientation, leading to the formation of cognitive maps.
A recent brain navigation study found that rats use the medial mammillary nucleus to solve navigational problems, which may be similar to how humans think. The study suggests that a sense of direction is crucial for spatial awareness and athletic performance.
Researchers from Mount Sinai Hospital identified a key role for the hippocampus in forming episodic memories. The study used rats to examine brain activity while they searched for food in a maze, revealing place cells that signaled location alone and others sensitive to recent or impending events.
A team of researchers used a computer game to study human navigation, identifying distinct brain cells responsible for spatial mapping (place cells) and goal-directed behavior (goal cells). The study demonstrates that humans use both visual and cognitive processes to navigate their environment.