Release date: 2014-10-11
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced on the 6th, with John O'Keefe, a scientist with American and British nationality, and two Norwegian scientists, May Brit Moser and Edward Moser, in recognition of their discovery of brain localization system cells. Research.
John O'Keefe and space location
John O'Keefe has been fascinated by the question of how the brain controls behavior. In the late 1960s, he decided to use neurophysiological methods to solve this problem. He tried to capture the signals from individual nerve cells in the hippocampus of rats in a room that was free to move. He noticed that when the rats were in a particular position, a nerve cell became active. . He discovered through experiments that this "positional cell" is not only visually remembered, but also constructs an internal map of the environment. O'Keefe concluded that the hippocampus can construct many maps under the combined action of cells in these locations that are activated in different environments. Thus, the brain's memory of the environment is stored in the hippocampus by a specific combination of localized cellular activities.
Like many Nobel laureates, O'Keefe was ridiculed by many people in the academic world when he put forward the theory of "positional cells" in the 1970s, but now he is finally affirmed. O'Keefe told reporters in London that he was surprised and unbelievable about the awards, and described his interest in change when he was young. He studied classical studies in high school, went to aviation in college, and then changed philosophy and psychology.
Stan, the honorary retired professor of physiology at Oxford University, is pleased to receive O'Keefe's award and believes that it is deserved. “Remember how indifferently ridiculed when John first portrayed 'positional cells.' At that time, the typical response in the academic world was 'destined to be artificial†and 'he obviously underestimated the smell of the mouse'. Now people think his discovery is like common sense. It is obvious."
May-Britt and Edvard Moser discovered coordination mechanisms
May-Britt and Edvard Moser found striking patterns of activity in the adjacent entorhinal cortex when mapping the hippocampus of the rat brain. In this region, when the rat passes through multiple locations in the hexagonal grid, specific cells are activated (Figure 2). Each such cell is activated by a specific spatial pattern, and such "grid cells" constitute a coordinated system that promotes spatial motion. Together with other cells in the entorhinal cortex that recognize the direction of the head and the boundaries of the room, they form a loop in the hippocampus. This loop forms an extensive positioning system in the brain, an internal GPS.
[1] Neuron: The brain is positioned by two “maps†of vision and body.
According to a report by the Physicist Network on December 5, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to study the brains of 18 people and mapped 400 different arm movements to reach the target. MRI image at the time. They found that when the brain is planning to move, there are two distinct types of positioning: visual maps and body maps. The study was published in the journal Neuro.
For example, when a ballerina grabs a companion's hand in a couple dance or strokes a wounded calf in the dark, the brain needs to use a different "map" to locate it in order to get the arm to the correct position. The latest research shows that grabbing the opponent's hand depends on the spatial visual map, while touching the calf depends on the body map in the mind.
The previous view was that all positioning movements, including those that lead to visual goals or to themselves, are planned using visual maps. The first author of the paper, Pierre-Michael Poni, said: "We found that if the target is visual, the posterior parietal cortex will be activated, using a visual map to encode the movement; and in the dark to complete an action, the goal is non- Visually, this action is planned by the same brain area using a completely different body map."
[2] Nature: Discover how the brain "GPS" system works
Just like the Global Positioning System (GPS) can help us locate where we are, the brain also has an intrinsic system to help determine where our body is and its surroundings. Recently, a publication on the journal Nature In the study, researchers from Princeton University revealed that a location-tracking neuron called a grid cell can collectively collaborate to locate the body.
Grid cells are an electrically active neuron that is like an animal traveling freely in nature. It was discovered in the mid-2000s. When the body moves to a special position, every cell is excited. . What is even more amazing is that the location of these grid cells is arranged in a hexagonal pattern, just like a checkerboard. Researcher David Tank said that grid cells can form a spatial representation, and our research focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying the work of the hexagonal model of the nervous system.
In previous studies, the researchers allowed mice to pass through a virtual environment generated by computer simulations, which measured electrical signals inside a single grid of cells in the mouse brain. When a mouse sees a video game in a virtual system, it moves to a mouse-sized pedal.
[3]Science: The magnetic field coding of the neuron in the dove brain with GPS positioning function
Pigeons can fly home from a few hundred kilometers away, even one or two thousand kilometers away. What is the mystery? The answer is that the pigeon brain neurons encode the Earth's magnetic field, making the pigeons reliable. The built-in GPS, the positioning system of the pigeon's brain, allows them to sense changes in the Earth's magnetic field and identify directions in long distances.
Scientists have long known that many animals (from birds to foxes and even humans) have magnetic field receivers. In previous long-term studies, experts have been arguing over the ability of pigeons to recognize the road. One side believes that the pigeons rely on the magnetic material in their bodies to identify the direction, just like a person uses a miniature compass; the other believes that the pigeons will be in the air. The different smells are used as signs to identify the route to go home. Of course, the role of visual signals cannot be ruled out; there is also a theory that pigeons are identified by the position of the sun. These previous studies have essentially determined the fact that magnetic field receivers are present in the axons of birds and other parts of vertebrates.
[4] In-depth interpretation: 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Flying pigeons pass the book, the old horse knows the way. When still in the primitive era, humans have realized that many animals have outstanding guiding abilities. Even in the mountains and rivers, no matter how cloudy or rainy, these amazing animals always know where the road is. There are also such high-profile hackers in humans. They seem to have embedded a high-resolution map in their minds, and they will not lose their way. As a road fool who can't live without GPS, I always admire such people and animals. Is it possible to have a living GPS built into their brains? The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine just announced is just right. Answered this question to us.
How can we not get lost? First, we must know what kind of place we are going. For example, I am going to the Forbidden City in Beijing. I must first know that it is a huge palace with red palace walls and golden glazed tiles. Abstraction says that we want to determine a certain position through a series of features. In our brain, there is such a neuron that is responsible for remembering the location features. One of the winners of this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, John O'Keefe of University College London, a colleague in the rat brain in 1971 called hippocampus In the brain area, a neuron was discovered, which they named "place cell"
[5] Scientists first discovered the human cell line cell network
We all have lost experiences. Fortunately, the special cells in the animal's brain that help to recognize the path are now found in humans for the first time. This discovery may permit better treatment for people who have difficulty recognizing the road.
We know that animals use three types of cells to recognize the path. When the animal faces a particular direction, the directional cells are stimulated. When an animal is in a particular location, its location cells are activated. As it moves around, grid cells are regularly fired.
Scientists have discovered the direction and position of cells in humans, but the signs of presence of grid cells are only revealed during some brain scans.
To explore whether these cells actually exist in the human brain, Joshua Jacobs and colleagues at Drexel University in the United States tested 14 volunteers. These volunteers have implanted electrodes in the brain to treat epilepsy.
The researchers asked volunteers to play a computer game to record the activity of a series of single cells in their brains. In this computer game, volunteers drive in open spaces, they search for objects and remember where they found the objects. Then they must determine the location of these objects again as soon as possible, but this time, unless the volunteers arrive at the right destination, they will not be able to see them.
[6] Nat Neurosci: There are also grid cells in the human brain.
According to a study in Nature-Neuroscience, when looking for a virtual environment, the human brain will exhibit grid-like activities. This shows that the navigation system in our body is active even when the body does not move in the physical space sense.
Previous studies have suggested that animal perception of space stems from the action of two types of nerve cells called space cells and grid cells. When animals enter specific areas of the environment, space cells become active, while grid cells The spatial model responsible for displaying this cellular activity, similar to the grid on the map. Although spatial cells have been found in the human brain, grid cells were previously only found in rodents, bats, and monkeys.
Joshua Jacobs et al. reported grid-like activity in the human brain, providing the most direct evidence for the presence of grid cells, which also indicates that human navigational collaboration systems are similar to other mammals.
The researchers transplanted the electrodes intracranically into the brains of patients with drug-resistant epilepsy who were being treated, and recorded the activity of nerve cells. They asked the patient to use the joystick to find objects in the virtual environment of the computer, and then searched for the grid-like structure in the patient's brain.
[7] Nature: nerve cells are remembered in a triangular grid
Usually maps use warp and weft at right angles to help locate, and a recent study in the UK shows that the "navigation system" in the human brain uses a grid of regular triangles.
Researchers at University College London reported in Nature that they first confirmed the existence of such a "mesh cell" in the human brain that uses a regular triangular mesh to aid localization. In the past, studies have found that such cells exist in the brain of experimental mice.
The researchers therefore designed a virtual reality system that allowed the participants to wear special equipment to “visit†the virtual valley grass and other scenery while using functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the activity of the corresponding area of ​​the subject's brain. It was found that the activity of the corresponding cells in the human brain also showed a distinct equilateral triangle mesh pattern, and the stronger the spatial memory ability of the subject, the more obvious this pattern was.
Caswell Barry, who participated in the study, said that these grid cells provide a spatially cognitive map of the brain that uses a very similar approach to the warp and latitude in a typical map, except that a triangular mesh is used instead of Square grid.
Grid cells are one of the cells most susceptible to diseases such as Alzheimer's disease in the brain, which can also help explain why the common symptoms of these diseases are unstoppable.
[8] is broader than the sky: revealing how complicated the brain works
[9] The brain can really work efficiently after reprogramming
Researchers from the University of Western Australia have revealed through research that electromagnetic stimulation can alter the brain's organizational structure and make the brain "work" more effectively. The research results are published in the journal Journal of Neuroscience.
The researchers said that a weaker continuous electromagnetic pulse, Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), can replace abnormal neural connections in the mouse brain with normal connections, making the brain more Efficient operation, this study treats a range of neurological disorders such as depression, epilepsy and tinnitus.
In order to better reveal the mechanism of action of electromagnetic stimulation on the brain, the researchers performed low-intensity rTMS stimulation on mice with abnormal brain structure after birth. Researcher Kalina Makowiecki said that even at low intensity, pulsed electromagnetic stimulation can be used. Reduce abnormal brain connections in the brain and replace them with normal localized connections in the brain.
[10] The first batch of neuronal cells in the brain of thought was successfully identified.
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine and Oxford University in the United States have recently successfully identified the first neuronal cells originally formed in the cerebral cortex. It is the activity of the cerebral cortex that makes human activities humanized.
The research paper was published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience. The results of the study showed that the first batch of neuronal cells in the brain, the researchers called them "older generations", formed 31 days after the completion of the insemination. This process is much earlier than previously thought. After a long time after the formation of this neuron, the embryo begins to develop and grows tissues such as hands, legs or eyes.
The researchers wrote in their paper, "The concept of these neuronal cells was first proposed here, and they are formed earlier than other known cells that promote the development of the cerebral cortex. These precocious 'olds' They have always played a pivotal role in the development of the cerebral cortex."
It is well known that the cerebral cortex is primarily responsible for the cognitive behavior of people, and plays a vital role in perception, memory, thinking, language, mental ability, intelligence and consciousness. It is made up of 20 billion neuronal cells, which account for as much as 40% of the brain's weight.
[11] JCB: Discover cell navigation systems that accelerate the treatment of cancer and neurological disorders
In a research paper published in the journal Journal of Cell Biology, researchers from Duke University found that a "tour inspection system" on the cell surface may be developed for the treatment of many diseases, such as cancer, Parkinson's disease. New therapies for disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) help.
In the article, the researchers used nematodes as model animals to study. The cells of the nematodes can break through the boundaries of normal tissues and enter other tissues and organs. This reaction is very important for many normal development processes, for embryo development and wounds. Healing and even the formation of new blood vessels are critical; but sometimes the process can go wrong, such as cancer metastasis, that is, cancer cells can spread to other tissues throughout the body.
Professor David Sherwood said that cell invasion is one of the most relevant, but poorly understood, processes in cancer research, and we have been working to study the molecular mechanisms of C. elegans for cell invasion control during normal development and cancer. During the development of nematodes, a special cell called an anchor cell is isolated from the uterus of the nematode, but it requires special signals to guide its separation from it. As early as in 2009, the researchers An anchor cell called nerve growth factor-directed cells is revealed that can invade in the exact direction.
[12] Nobel Prize: China's gap is quite big and always a step
“This is simply not possible. I never expected it to be a lofty honor.†On October 6, John O'Keefe, one of the 2014 Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine, was still very interviewed by reporters. excitement. When he learned the award, he was working at his desk at home as he used to.
The Caroline Medical School of Sweden announced in Stockholm on the 6th that it will award the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to John O'Keefe, a scientist with both US and British nationality, and two Norwegian scientists, May Brit Moser and Edward Moser. In recognition of their discovery of cells found in the brain's localization system.
The Nobel Prize Selection Committee said in a statement that the research results of this year's winners solved the problems that have plagued the scientific community for centuries and discovered the brain's positioning system, the "internal GPS", enabling humans to locate themselves in space. To help to further understand the central mechanism of spatial memory in the human brain.
In an interview, Brit said that she was so angry that she received a good news from the Secretary of the Swedish Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. What made her feel a bit frustrated was that her husband, Edward, was on the plane at the time and could not share the news with him in the first place.
"After the 12:30 plane landed, I walked out of the cabin. There was an airport representative holding flowers to pick me up. I was still confused." Edward said that after seeing 150 emails and 75 text messages from friends, He only knew that he won the Nobel Prize.
This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will total 8 million Swedish kronor (about 1.11 million US dollars), O'Keefe will receive half of the bonus, and the Moser couple will share the other half of the bonus.
[13] Rewriting memory is expected to become a reality
Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po reported that if the memory related to emotions can be rewritten, I believe many people will choose to erase unpleasant memories. Japanese and American scientists have recently succeeded in researching ways to rewrite memory, helping to develop new methods for treating stress syndrome (PTSD) and mental illness such as depression.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Japanese Institute of Physical Chemistry (RIKEN) are based on the study of "memory integration". The physical phenomena in the brain are constantly changing and can therefore be changed. For example, after the formation of unpleasant memories, the relevant emotions can be deleted.
Previous studies have found that the brain is responsible for memory and spatial localization is the hippocampus, and the emotional response is the amygdala.
Using optogenetics, the researchers applied two groups of mice to their brains for light-responsive substances in their experiments. One group of mice will be shocked to create fear memory; the other group will interact with the opposite sex to create positive memories. Researchers use light to activate their memories and let them experience the opposite experience when they recall.
[14] Nat Neurosci: Revealing the dynamics of neural circuits or targeted therapy for Alzheimer's disease
In a research paper published in the international journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists from McGill University and other places have revealed the neural circuits and dynamic mechanisms that control brain memory. This mechanism is also the basic component of the hippocampus. .
As early as 2009, researchers developed a special method, the in vitro preparation of hippocampal formation; now researchers have successfully implemented the above-mentioned hippocampal formation in the mouse body, hippocampus and memory. The associated active stream is not unidirectional. Memory can form our core identity. However, the generation and extraction of memory is a phenomenon we cannot understand. Researchers have carried out a lot of research around the neural circuits related to learning and memory, because people will suffer from it. A disease, such as Alzheimer's disease.
In recent years, researchers Williams and colleagues have begun to focus on the dynamics of the brain's neural circuits. The researchers say that the process of memory coding and extraction requires the activation of thousands of neurons in the hippocampus, nevertheless, Researchers still know very little about the neural circuits involved in the process.
Revealing the behavior of neurons in the hippocampus may help scientists to understand the abnormal mechanisms of neural circuits in diseases related to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. Only the relevant neuronal circuits in the hippocampus may be identified. Can help understand the effects of memory mechanisms, and the understanding of the complex dynamics of these neural circuits will help researchers to reveal early changes in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, and provide more research ideas for the development of new targeted therapies. .
[15] Nat Neurosci: Scientists Reveal Neural Network Regulation Mechanisms for Individual Memory Formation
The ability of individual learning and memory is thought to be due to the increased synaptic connectivity of hippocampal neurons in the brain. The hippocampus includes five sub-regions, and the circuit formed between four sub-regions is considered to be individual memory. The key to the formation; recently, published in a research paper published in the internationally renowned journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers from the Japan Institute of Physical and Chemical Research identified a new type of circuit in the fifth sub-region of the hippocampus.
For more than 100 years, researchers have been working on the main circuit of the human brain, the olfactory cortex consisting of dentate and sub-regions CA3 and CA1. The sub-region CA2 is located between CA3 and CA1, and its cells are relatively "rough". (Insufficiently detailed) In this study, the researchers used a combination of tectonics, genetics, and physiology techniques to analyze the connections of neurons in the subregional CA2. First, researchers used fluorescent markers to label nerve fibers. The expression of RGS14, PCP4 and STEP identified the CA2 subregion, and the results showed that CA2 region neurons can receive a large amount of information input from cells in the dentate gyrus region compared to expectations.
The researchers then experimented with the mouse model, using lasers to stimulate the fibers and recording the activity of several other sub-regions. The results showed that the activation of neurons in the CA2 and CA3 regions can occur rapidly, while the CA1 region is relatively Slower. The researchers said that neurons in the CA2 subregion can send fibers to the CA1 subregion, forming a pattern that can alternately fall back.
[16] Neuron: a gene found to cause abnormalities in hippocampal neurons
Scientists can now gain a deeper understanding of a gene that causes severe mental illness. Destruction of the DISC1 gene (disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1) has an important effect on the development and migration of neurons in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the region of the brain responsible for learning and memory, and the hippocampus is abnormal or may cause schizophrenia.
In the first study, Enomoto et al. found that DISC1 works with the actin-binding protein Girdin to regulate neuronal axon formation. Previous studies have shown that Girdin is a substrate for AKT and is involved in the formation of normal cellular structures. Studies on cells in which neonatal mouse dentate gyrus lacks Girdin protein indicate that mouse nerve cells cannot form axons. Moreover, inhibition of the interaction between DISC1/Girdin will result in abnormal migration and mislocalization of nerve cells during development.
In another study, Guo-li Ming and others at Johns Hopkins University found that inhibition of DISC1 gene expression in newly formed neurons in adult hippocampus would result in overactive AKT, a AKT gene A gene associated with schizophrenia. Further studies have shown that inhibition of the neuronal dysplasia caused by the DISC1 gene or the gene-modified AKT signal can be improved by the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR).
[17] Current Biology: a map of the human hippocampus
Telepathy? Maybe. By analyzing the nerve cells used by the subjects, the researchers are now successfully identifying the "standing" position of people in the virtual environment. This discovery will help scientists better understand how memory can go wrong in neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers have made progress in explaining the consciousness of rats. By recording the activation pattern of neurons called location cells, scientists have been able to determine the location of a rat in the lab maze. But such studies can only record the activity of a small fraction of cells in millions of nerve cells associated with spatial memory. Scientists believe that once all of these cells are monitored, there is bound to be a huge leap in the cognitive aspects of memory mechanisms.
As a result, neuroscientists Demis Hassabis and Eleanor Maguire of the University College London in the UK turned to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that monitors brain activity through changes in blood flow. The researchers asked four male volunteers to walk in two rooms formed by virtual programs and repeatedly stayed at eight locations with different markers; at the same time, fMRI performed the hippocampus region in the volunteer's brain. scanning. As early as 2000, some of the researchers had found that compared to other adult males, the London taxi driver, the so-called navigator, had a larger hippocampus and a different shape from the former. Explain that this area of ​​the brain is important for spatial memory.
[18]Introduction to the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The research by scientists John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard I. Mosel solves a long-standing problem for scientists, how the brain maps the surrounding environment and how we navigate in complex environments.
Researchers May-Britt Moser and Professor Edvard Moser discovered a special nerve cell-mesh cell in the entorhinal cortex of the brain in 2005. When the rat passes a specific position, these cells are activated and expressed, while the grid cells The position will form a hexagonal grid, each grid cell will react in a specific spatial position, and finally these grid cells will form a coordinate system that can realize spatial navigation.
Grid cells and other cells in the entorhinal cortex can recognize the direction of the animal's head and the boundaries of the room, thus forming a network system of spatial cells in the hippocampus of the brain. These cellular network circuits form a complex and deep positioning system. The brain is built-in GPS, and the GPS system in the human brain and the GPS system in the rat brain have similar components.
Source: Bio Valley
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