Navigation and spatial memory: New brain region identified to be involved
Wednesday, August 16, 2017 - 09:32
in Biology & Nature
Navigation in mammals including humans and rodents depends on specialized neural networks that encode the animal’s location and trajectory in the environment, serving essentially as a GPS, findings that led to the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Failure of these networks to function properly, as seen in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological conditions, results in severe disorientation and memory deficits. Researchers have now uncovered striking neural activity patterns in a brain area called the retrosplenial cortex that may assist with spatial memory and navigation.