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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.
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.
We already have mind control capabilities of varying levels effectiveness. Pharmacological mind control, that we use quite effectively to control the symptoms of mental illness. Manipulative mind control that have been researched to hell and back for the sake of advertisement, down to small percentage changes in apparent mood from different colors of logos. Or bog standard brainwashing techniques that have existed from the beginning of time used by cults and schools and religions and multi-level-marketting schemes.
What you're perceiving is some arbitrarily electronic or arbitrarily precise level of mind control. Just because what we have now doesn't look super-duper sci-fi doesn't mean it's not another person controlling your mind. You've just internalized it as something you can ignore or resist.
Helping treat and/or reverse Alzheimer's is bound to please some people.
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Although for the number of discoveries we've had so far that claimed "may help to understand/treat Alzheimer's", you would think it would have gone the way of smallpox by now.
The first effective treatment for smallpox, variola inoculation, was developed during the Song Dynasty in 10th Century China. The last active case of smallpox, in Somalia in 1973, was a thousand years later. Things take time.
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.
It's worth keeping in mind the important differences, and that we've only wiped out smallpox and rinderpest, although hopefully polio will follow shortly. Also, the identification and degree of concern for Alzheimer's disease are fairly recent, as expanded lifespans make it a more relevant issue. Also, I would say that we are a lot further behind in regards to brain science/psychology than we are in regards to general immune function.
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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.