Science Park news news from the official website of the Nobel Prize, the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the winner: American scientist John Aoji Fu (John O'Keefe), Norwegian scientists May - Britt Moser (May-Britt Moser) and Norwegian scientists Edvard Moser (Edvard I. Moser). Because they "discovered positioning system composed of the brain cells" award.
Awards reason:
In 1971, John Aoji Fu found that when the one rat into the environment of a particular location, the specific nerve cells in the brain are activated. When changing to a different location, it will lead to other specific brain nerve cells are activated. John Aoji Fu suggested that these "place cells" built inside a map of the external environment. These "place cells" is positioned in the hippocampus of the brain.
2005, May - Britt Moser and Edvard Moser discovered that when rats by specific location, located in the vicinity of some of the other hippocampal entorhinal cortex neurons are activated. These brain areas constitute a hexagonal grid, each grid cell function in a specific space drawings. These cells together form a grid coordinate system, to facilitate the activity of the rats in three-dimensional space.
Cell borders grid cells located in the entorhinal cortex for identifying animals and head in the direction of the room, and is located in the hippocampus place cells together to form a network system. This circuit constitutes a complex spatial positioning system, which is the brain of a GPS system. This system is the human brain seems to have a similar structure to the rat brain.
Awards analysis:
Positioning and navigation capabilities are the foundation of our existence. Sense of place given the location-aware environment. Navigation refers to the interrelated cognitive and motor based on the location of the previous generation's sense of distance.
Philosophers and scientists concerning the location and navigation issues have had a long discussion. 200 years ago, the German philosopher Kant believed that some of the mental ability as a priori knowledge independent of experience exists. He believes that the concept of space is inherently spiritual instinct, which people must perceive the existence of this world by instinct.
By the mid-20th century, with the rise of behavioral psychology, these problems began to be solved by experimental means. Edward C. Tolman motion by studying rats in the maze found that they can learn how to navigate, he believes in the rat brain by forming a "cognitive map" and find a way out. But the problem is still not completely solved, how the brain there is a map of it?
There are more question: how do we know where we are? How can we find from one place to another on the road? How do we remember these roads, and next time we are tracking the same path by how effortlessly immediately find these roads? This year's Nobel Prize winner gives us the answer - they found a positioning system, a human brain "inner GPS", is that it allows us to locate their own space, and reveals the cellular basis of this higher cognitive functions .
In 1971, John Aoji Fu found the first part of this positioning system. He found that the hippocampus in the brain there is a type of nerve cell, when the rat is located in a location of the room, the nerve cells in an area that is always active, and when you move to another location when rats , other cells are activated. Ao Jifu thus concluded that these "place cells" in the brain to form a map of the room.
Thirty years years later, May - Britt and Edvard Moser discovered another important part of the positioning system of the brain. They identified another type of nerve cells, which are known as "grid cells" that generate a coordinate system, through this system allows precise positioning and pathfinding. They then studies have shown that the location and grid cell is to help people determine the location and navigation.
John Ao Jifu, May - Britt Moser and Edvard Moser discovered solve a problem philosophers and scientists has been debated for centuries, namely, how the brain generates a map of the space around us, and how through this system navigation in a complex environment?
Awards were presented:
John Aoji Fu (John O'Keefe)
Born in 1939 in New York, the United States and holds British citizenship. In 1967 he obtained a doctorate in physiological psychology at McGill University, University College London in England post-doctoral research, and then stayed. Became a professor of cognitive neuroscience in 1987, it is currently a University College London neural circuits and behavior Sainsbury Director of the Wellcome Centre.
May - Britt Moser (May-Britt Moser) and Edvard Moser (Edvard I. Moser)
Born in 1963 in Norway Alesund, Norway has the nationality. She at the University of Oslo and her future husband, the Nobel Laureate Edvard Moser joint study with psychology, and received a doctorate in neurophysiology in 1995. She did postdoctoral research at the University of Edinburgh, and then to the University College London as a visiting scientist. 1996 Norwegian University of Science Trondheim Angeles office. In 2000 May-Britt Moser was appointed professor of neuroscience. Trondheim is currently BRANCH neural computing center director.
Born in 1962 in Norway Alesund, Norway has the nationality. 1995 Ph.D. Neuropsychology at the University of Oslo. And then his wife, co-winner of the Nobel Prize May-Britt Moser together first at Edinburgh University postdoctoral, and then in London, John O? Keefe visiting scientist's laboratory. In 1996 they go to Trondheim Norwegian University of Science Branch office in 1998 was appointed professor. Trondheim is currently BRANCH Systems Institute of Neuroscience, Kavli institute.
(Source: nobelprize compilation: old talk Shackles Prisoner, jingle blue art: oil cake cat)
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