The reason we find directions or remember special places is because there are areas in the brain that function as GPS and navigation functions. The first place I go to is keenly on the topographical features along the route, but it is also thanks to this location tracking system that I can easily go to it without paying much attention.
Scientists have discovered that the place cells of the hippocampus in the brain are responsible for spatial perception through various mammalian experiments. However, it has not been revealed how the place cells that form and store long-term memory of location and space are activated in a specific place.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced on the 19th that Dr. Sebastien Royal’s team at the Brain Science Research Institute discovered that location cells in the hippocampus store information about locations using frequency codes and phase codes like barcodes.
In addition, it was revealed that it has a parallel information processing mechanism that changes the activation area and usage strategy of place cells depending on whether the topographic features on the path are complex or simple.
The KIST researchers confirmed the basic principles of the formation and activation of long-term memory in the hippocampus through two types of spatial experiments. First, the rats were trained to run sequentially by creating an empty section and a section scattered with small objects on the long belt of the treadmill, which is a space training device, and the second was conducted by placing objects in a circular barrel or emptying them completely. Although it is presumed that it plays an important role in the formation of spatial memory, silicon probe electrodes were implanted in small regions of the hippocampus, CA1 and CA3, which had not been able to grasp specific functions to analyze the activity of neurons.
Similar results were obtained in the two experiments. It was observed that the hippocampus uses different brain regions and separate input devices and information processing strategies depending on the situation of space, location, and object and environmental conditions. In a simple environment without an object, a cell population using a frequency code that matches and stores the frequency at which one neuron triggers an action potential on the CA1 surface with space and location information tended to be activated. On the contrary, in a complex environment with many objects, it was observed that as the activity of the deep part of CA1 increases, a phase code that stores time intervals between several neurons together is mainly used for information processing.
This suggests that the frequency code is more related to the frequency code when it is necessary to provide a comprehensive sense of location and space, and the phase code is more related to the memory of the exact location of an object and its relationship to space. In addition, the functions of the CA3 area were also identified. CA3 was expected to play a role of inputting information to CA1 along with the olfactory cortex, but this study found that CA3 mainly provided information to CA1 in a simple environment, and the olfactory cortical region provided information to CA1 in a complex environment. .
Dr. Sebastien Royal of KIST said, “Through this study, we can understand how the hippocampus processes information, and this will serve as a foundation for further clarifying the basic principles of memory.” It is expected that it will be able to contribute to the development of artificial intelligence based on biological data along with the technology to treat and diagnose brain diseases related to hippocampal injury.”
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Dr. Sebastien Royal’s team is gradually expanding their understanding of how to acquire and analyze information in memory-related brain regions through various experiments. In October of last year, the process of granular cells in the hippocampus learns places through various neural networks such as moss cells and turns into place cells through mouse experiments and simulations.
This research was carried out through major projects of KIST with the support of the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the results of the research were published in the latest issue of Neuron, an international journal.