Cell Sub-Journal: How does human brain GPS work? Scientists discover unique neurons!

Ordinary neurons in the cerebral cortex can recognize direction well only when we turn the head; if the head doesn't move, how do we integrate direction information? Studies have shown that the posterior compressional cortex (RSC) is essential for memory and navigation, but the neural coding behind these functions is still unknown.researchers at the University of Michigan found that RSC excitatory neurons were good at encoding directional information over a long period of time by recording the signals of single neurons in the mouse brain, which was published in the journal Cell reports.doi: 10.1016/j.cellrep.2019.12.093 the researchers first found that the most common cell type in the 2 / 3 (layers 2 / 3) of mouse granular RSC was the pyramidal cells, which had low rheobase (LR), high input resistance, high excitability and were not adapted to pulse frequency.at the same time, the pulse width of LR cells was related to the pulse width of adjacent fast spiking (FS) inhibitory neurons and regular spiking (RS) excited neurons.although LR cells are highly excited, they rarely synapse with neighboring neurons. With their unique intrinsic properties, LR cells ensure the accuracy and persistence of information coding on multiple time scales in RSC.the researchers further found that L2 / 3 is an inhibitory feedforward network, which has a close connection between FS cells and between FS and LR neurons.overexcited neurons in the RSC of the brain can accurately and persistently encode information. Ahmed, the author of the study, stressed that RSC is essential for spatial localization and is one of the earliest brain regions in patients with Alzheimer's disease.and RSC cells can not work normally, which may be the reason why most Alzheimer's patients have spatial orientation disorder and easy to get lost.therefore, understanding how RSC cells encode directional information in the healthy brain will help to develop new therapeutic methods.end reference: [1] researchers identify unique nerve that computers like a compass [2] hyperexitable nerves enable precise and persistent information encoding in the superior retroplural cortex