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Nobel Prize For Medicine Awarded For "Brain GPS" Research
Dave Knott writes U.S.-British scientist John O'Keefe and Norwegian married couple May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discovering the "inner GPS" that helps the brain navigate through the world. O'Keefe, currently director of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre in Neural Circuits and Behaviour at University College London, discovered the first component of this system in 1971 when he found that a certain type of nerve cell was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room. He demonstrated that these "place cells" were building up a map of the environment, not just registering visual input. Thirty-four years later, the Mosers, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, identified another type of nerve cell — the "grid cell" — that generates a coordinate system for precise positioning and path-finding, These findings on rats — and research suggests humans have the same system in their brains — represent a paradigm shift in our knowledge of how cells work together to perform cognitive functions and could help scientists understand the mechanisms behind Alzheimer's disease.
It won't bring happiness to the world
We are getting awfully close to actual mind control capabilities.
Heard about this on NPR during the morning drive and how the "place cells" were found 30 years ago and how that researcher's students found "grid cells" recently to complete the picture. The most intriguing part of the story was the expectation of the impact that this discovery will have on the world of philosophy, as it now it know that our brains have a physical (mathematically based and similar to a computer) mechanism for knowing where we are in 3D space. They also discussed while no practical use or 'cures' are on the immediate horizon, this is apparently the first brain function to go with the onset of Alzheimer's and may lead to greater understanding.
TPTB, under the guise of research and helping the blind or other some shit want control over the entire brain for ultimate control. You don't have to spend a day at RECALL to understand this and connect the fucking dots.
I was present at a talk where the PI first presented these findings a number of years ago, at least I think it was this guy. Turns out the person who actually figured it out was a physics-oriented student who was doing a stint in the lab. I think this is an excellent example of how the future of discovery lies in interdisciplinary collaboration, needing people from various disciplines working closely together to forge ahead. Indeed, many of the top universities have recognized this, which is why they are naming their new science buildings "integrated" this or that.
If I had to be more specific, I would say the future of discovery in the biological and chemical fields lies in people who are skilled physicists and mathematicians as well. I wish I had focused more on those two disciplines before branching off myself. If there was any advice I'd give to budding scientists, it would be to act like you are a physics major with a math minor, in addition to everything else you are majoring in, if you want to be the best at what you do. Oh, and learn to code!
...I don't need to stop and ask for directions.
Sheesh!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I don't understand why the press keep referring to this as a "GPS". We all know that we build a mental map of our surroundings; the science they did was figuring out how different parts of the brain work together to build, store, and use that map. But I suppose GPS sounds better than a Dead Reckoning system, which is what it really is.
Have gnu, will travel.
While place and grid cells have been identified in the brain, we still have no idea how those functions are computed (people in my group and many others are working on this problem). We don't yet know how these representations are combined with our sensory experiences to form episodic memories (again, there are hypotheses, but no standard theory exists). There's no question that O'Keefe and the Mosers deserve the prize, but their work literally represents the mere beginning of this line of research.
sadnees And it was as it is licensed our cause. Gay are inherently
So here we are with an internal matrix supposing that the reality that we live in is also some giant matrix. What'a a poor boy to do?
I wonder how much this has to do with the brains ability to build 'Memory Palaces'. I was at a conference recently where an engineer spoke (significantly off the programming topics we were there to discuss) about how memory athletes actually do what they do. Essentially Athletes use the ability to memorize places that are common to us (our homes, walks to work, etc) to guide the brains ability to remember long sequences of information. For example - a common party trick using this technique is to memorize a shuffled deck of cards. It's even possible to use compression in the techniques.
Anyway - perhaps this sheds some light on how that's possible.
I'm sure that some will see this as inappropriate, but I wonder if research will eventually discover that men and women have slightly different mechanisms for location mapping in their brains...
Another Nobel Prize for something that could be useful.
http://blog.sethroberts.net/20...