Nobel Prize For Medicine Awarded For "Brain GPS" Research 33
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.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
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Just saying...
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org], 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.
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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 [wikipedia.org], 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.
Doing the right thing takes time.
Greed and corruption get fast-tracked. For obvious reasons.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
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Helping treat and/or reverse Alzheimer's is bound to please some people.
Except they have nothing like that, all they have is an early indicator of Alzheimer's. That is of course useful, but since we've got neither a cure nor any useful treatments to counteract the effects that alone won't do much. It's a major achievement in decoding how the mind works though.
I kept Telling My Ex... (Score:2)
...I don't need to stop and ask for directions.
Sheesh!
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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-markett
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Derp. Those are both also already possible to a degree.
It's not pedantry to point out that your imagined "profound" changes in technology are, at best, minor, gradual changes.
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...like accessing memories and implanting them is soon going to be possible.
I know, it's about time, isn't it? Humanity has been held back so much over the past millennia without any way to record in our brains information about observed events and then access them at some later time. Just imagine all of the incredible scientific breakthroughs we'll be able to accomplish once we manage this long-overdue feat.
From NPR (Score:3)
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this is apparently the first brain function to go with the onset of Alzheimer's and may lead to greater understanding.
It's my understand that it's protein plaque forming between neurons, thus interfering with communications between the cells. As such, having information constantly being re-routed as the disease progresses makes sense that orientation would be disrupted. Would it not?
I think that is a definite maybe. I'd think it would depend on how this functionality actually works. If the brain re-wires its connections, then from one standpoint you'd think the new neurons could just take the place of the old ones. On the other hand, if the brain actually implemented 3D problem-solving by actually running the problems in a physical model of a 3D world that could break down. For example, if figuring out the fastest way from A to B involved sending signals out through a network and s
The picture is far from complete (Score:2)
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.
First hand (Score:1)
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 na
GPS buzzword (Score:5, Insightful)
This explains ... (Score:2)
Internal Matrix? (Score:2)
Differences between men and women? (Score:2)
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...
Nobels for things that could be useful (Score:1)
Another Nobel Prize for something that could be useful.
http://blog.sethroberts.net/20... [sethroberts.net]