"Neuron" "Road Chi" may be a problem with this cell

A new study by neuroscientists at Columbia Engineering University shows that a previously unknown human brain cell seems to help people focus

There are two strategies, humans and animals to navigate and position themselves

When you use a mobile app to find driving directions, it may use both navigation modes at the same time

In 1971, scientists discovered brain cells related to heterocentric frames of reference in mice for the first time-for example, "locating cells" may indicate that a cell is located in the northeast corner of a certain area

In the past decade, researchers have begun to study how the mouse brain maps the egocentric frame of reference

Lukas Kunz, a postdoctoral scientist in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University and the first author of the new study, said: “In humans, it is almost impossible to record the activity of a single neuron directly from the brain for ethical reasons

In this new study, neuroscientists from the United States and Germany surveyed 15 patients with epilepsy at the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany

The researchers asked volunteers to perform computer tasks to explore their ability to navigate and remember the locations of many different objects in a virtual environment

Scientists have discovered more than 160 neurons that behave similarly to the ego-centered spatial cell type, when specific parts of the virtual environment are located in front of, behind, left or right of the patient, or when in space These neurons will activate when the point is close to or far away from the patient

Kunz said: "We are now the first human self-centered type of cell space team reported

These "self-centered carrier cells" are likely to encode spatial information on a mental map centered on everyone

These self-centered carrier cells are particularly abundant in the parahippocampal cortex.

Researchers also found that when patients use memory to successfully recall the location of objects they find in a virtual environment, the activity of these self-centered carrier cells increases

"Memory is composed of many different elements, such as a specific event, where the event occurred, and when the event occurred

These findings may explain the problems that patients with memory impairments, including those with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, may have

These new discoveries cannot answer how people deal with this memory disorder

In the future, researchers want to know why any particular self-centered bearing cell is adjusted to any point in the space it focuses on
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Currently, Kunz and his colleagues hypothesize that a variety of different spatial cues, such as objects, spatial boundaries, and landmarks, collectively affect the location of these reference points
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Scientists can study the influence of these cues on the location of these reference points by removing these cues from the environment during the experiment
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"Another important question is how the egocentric carrier cell interacts with the heterocentric spatial cell type," Kunz said
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"We currently assume that the self-centered carrier cell provides the necessary input for the heterocentric spatial cell type
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By understanding this, future research can explain how the regulation of the heterocentric spatial cell type is subject to the self-centered carrier.
The effect of cell function
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A neural code for egocentric spatial maps in the human medial temporal lobe