May-Britt and Edvard I. Moser are exploring the way the brain records and remembers movement in space, which they speculate may be the basis of all memory.

Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:

This is more neuroscience than it is geography, but it is incredibly relevant to geographers and spatial analysis.  These Norwegian neuroscientists are charting the brain to understand how we remember where we have been, where we are and how we navigate through space.  They are primarily mapping out the brains of rats, but much of what they’ve discovered appears to hold for all mammals.  There are certain cells that are only active when you are in certain places.  These cells interact as a network in a grid pattern,  forming a very regular hexagonal pattern (central place theory!?!).  These ‘place cells’ or ‘grid cells’ store information about distances and directions and are crucial to navigation.  Read more about it in this article or watch this 6-minute video. 

 

Tags: spatial, mental maps.

  

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