How Does Your Brain's GPS Work?
This week, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was given to Professor John O'Keefe and Edvard and May-Britt Moser for their studies of the brain's internal gps!
==========
If I get lost in the woods, how do I get home? My brain knows… I hope… *gulp* Sometimes I read science and I'm just floored by how much we DON'T know about the world we're living in. For example, how does your brain, a lump of tissue stuck in your head, know where it is, where it's going and where it's been in three dimensional space? It's not like it has GPS, right? … Well… maybe it does. Sorta? Kinda? This week, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was handed out to Prof John O'Keefe and Edvard and May-Britt Moser for their studies of the brain's internal navigation systems. In the 1970s, O'Keefe discovered neurons that he called, "place cells," that fire only when an animal is in a particular spot. The news didn't take off in the media, but other ...
==========
If I get lost in the woods, how do I get home? My brain knows… I hope… *gulp* Sometimes I read science and I'm just floored by how much we DON'T know about the world we're living in. For example, how does your brain, a lump of tissue stuck in your head, know where it is, where it's going and where it's been in three dimensional space? It's not like it has GPS, right? … Well… maybe it does. Sorta? Kinda? This week, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was handed out to Prof John O'Keefe and Edvard and May-Britt Moser for their studies of the brain's internal navigation systems. In the 1970s, O'Keefe discovered neurons that he called, "place cells," that fire only when an animal is in a particular spot. The news didn't take off in the media, but other ...
