Medical Nobel in 2014 for “internal GPS” – Deon.pl

 

 The names of the Nobel Prize winners were announced Monday in Stockholm.

 

The Nobel Committee has decided that the 75-year-old O’Keefe of the University College of London (a citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom) will receive half of the 8 million SEK (approx. 3.6 million gold), and the other half split evenly marriage Norwegians: May-Britt Moser (51 years) and Edvard Moser (52 years) from the University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

 

 “This year’s Nobel laureates have discovered in the brain positioning system, internal GPS + +, which allows us to orient themselves in space” – wrote in support of its decision, the members of the Committee.

 

In their view, John O’Keefe and marriage Moser “solved the problem, which for centuries occupied philosophers and scientists.” They added that the findings may help to better understand the mechanism of spatial memory loss that is observed in Alzheimer’s disease. Research on “Cerebral GPS” opened a new road that should lead to the understanding of other cognitive processes – even the memory, thinking and planning.

 

 As noted by the Committee, from the 20s of the last century spatial orientation has been the subject of experiments. The first component of “cognitive maps” in the brain discovered in 1971. John O’Keefe. He observed that a certain type of neurons in the part of the brain called the hippocampus – “cell site” is always active when the rat is in a particular place of peace. More than 30 years later, in 2005., May-Britt and Edvard Moser discovered grid cells (grid cells). Examining the connections in the hippocampus of rats showed a specific activity of neighboring cells of the brain – entorhinal cortex (entorhinal cortex.)

 

 Similar mechanisms have been observed in humans. In people with Alzheimer’s disease is often at an early stage there is a deterioration of spatial memory. Such people can easily be lost even in a well-known environment. The findings of this year’s Nobel Prize winners may facilitate the understanding of the mechanism of spatial memory impairment observed in this disease.

 

 John O’Keefe from the beginning of his career he was fascinated by the scientific study of the brain in terms of behavior. For many years conducted research in London, but was born in New York City to Irish immigrants. He currently serves as director of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre in Neural Circuits and Behaviour at University College London. The fact that the Nobel Prize winner learned while working at his desk in his own home in London. “I have an opinion quite patient – said Adam Smith of Nobel Media, referring to the 43 years of his research. – In the beginning most people were skeptical about the idea that you can find in the brain of binding elements with aspects of the environment.”

 

Moserowie is the fifth in the history of marriage Nobel-Prize winning, and May-Britt Moser is the eleventh woman honored with the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology. While studying psychology at the University of Oslo she met her future husband and collaborator, Edvard I. Moser. In 1995, he received a Ph.D. in neurophysiology. Currently, Ms. Moser leads Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience at the University of Trondheim. He is a member of the Royal Norwegian Scientific Society and the Norwegian Academy of Science. Her husband studied mathematics and statistics, as well as psychology and neuroscience, but it is this latter field has brought him and his wife the Nobel Prize.

 

“awarded one of the greatest, finest, most amazing discoveries in recent years, which pushed forward research on the physiology, behavior and biochemistry of the brain” – told PAP Dr. Czajkowski from the Laboratory of Animal Models in Center for Neurobiology in IBD Academy of Sciences, who for three years worked with Nobel Laureates. He added that the couple had a complement – Edvard I. Moser is more theoretically oriented, while May-Britt is a part of the experimental.

 

 In turn, Dr. Luke Badowski Copernicus Science Centre believes that the winner of the Nobel medical unveiled another piece of “theory of mind”. Perhaps in the future, thanks to, among others, their discoveries, you will be able to control and influence what we want and what we do not want to remember.

 

 “It was a test so important that they belonged Nobel Prize” – rated in an interview with PAP prof. Jerzy Vetulani from the Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences. According to him, although the research of this year’s Nobel Prize winners are not yet direct applications in the long run to understand the mechanisms of the brain will make it possible. Effectively prevent aging of the brain and result in rehabilitation after strokes.

 

 Vetulani reminded experiment Briton Richard Frackowiak. The London taxi drivers – who every day make up in your head spatial maps have larger hippocampi than the average Londoners, and the size of this part of the brain is correlated with experience in the profession.