Researchers say the brain appears to be wired to calculate not the shortest path, but the "pointiest" path, facing us toward our destination as much as possible.
Two new studies advance understanding of how the brain encodes episodic memories. The findings have the potential to develop new avenues of treatment for memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease and TBI.
Grid cell dysfunction in the entorhinal cortex may explain why people with a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease have problems with navigation.
Study shows how hippocampal cells can represent different hypothetical scenarios consistently and systematically over time. The findings shed new light on how place cells assist in decision making and imagination.
Memories learned within a distorted coordinated system are also distorted when recalled later.
The postrhinal cortex of rats contains three types of spatial cells which act together to provide a sense of location and directional orientation.
During navigation tasks using a 'smell scape', the entorhinal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex elicit grid cell-like activity.
Using augmented reality, researchers discover how rats recalibrate learned relationships between a landmark, speed, distance and time to create a locational 'map' in the brain.
Researchers propose a new theory of human thinking, suggesting our brain's navigation system is key to thinking. This may explain why our knowledge seems to be organized in spatial fashion.
An international team of researchers have been able to demonstrate, with electrophysiological evidence, the existence of grid-like activity in the human brain.
Researchers have identified a network of cells in the entorhinal cortex that appear to play a key role into putting experience into a temporal context.
Researchers report the firing patterns of grid cells are less stable in older adults. This, they say, could be why older people have more problems with spatial navigation than younger people.