Chongqing- A hospital based in China's Chongqing Municipality has made a breakthrough in discovering another GPS system in the brain, according to a paper published recently.
The team of Professor Zhang Shengjia from the Department of Neurosurgery at the Second Affiliated (Xinqiao) Hospital of Army Medical University in Chongqing published a paper online titled A novel somatosensory spatial navigation system outside the hippocampal formation in Cell Research, a sister journal of the internationally renowned magazine Nature.
The team of Professor Zhang Shengjia from the Department of Neurosurgery at the Second Affiliated (Xinqiao) Hospital of Army Medical University in Chongqing published a paper online. (Screenshot from Cell Research)
Since the classic spatial positioning system mediated by the hippocampal-entorhinal network was discovered, another brand-new yet complete set of the brain’s spatial navigation system with spatially selective features has just, for the first time, been found in the primary somatosensory cortex.
Another brand-new yet complete set of the brain’s spatial navigation system with spatially selective features has just, for the first time, been found in the primary somatosensory cortex. (Picture from Pixabay)
This discovery will indeed open up a new field of systems neuroscience and will also have important enlightening significance for the study of interdisciplinary subjects such as brain navigation and brain-computer interaction.
This discovery will indeed open up a new field of systems neuroscience. (Picture from Pixabay)
"The hippocampus is the central hub for the spatial cognitive map, which makes spatial navigation in the brain possible," said Professor Zhang. He explained, for more than 40 years since the initial discovery of place cells in 1971, the field of neuroscience has generally believed that the system for spatial navigation in the brain is mainly located in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex.
“Our team recorded the neural activity from the primary somatosensory cortex in foraging rats,” said Professor Zhang. “To our surprise, we were able to detect the complete core components of spatially selective firing patterns similar to those reported in the hippocampal-entorhinal network, namely, place cells, head-direction cells, boundary vector/border cells, grid cells, and conjunctive cells, in the primary somatosensory cortex.”
The findings prove that these newly identified somatosensory spatial cells form another set of a spatial map outside the hippocampal formation supports the hypothesis -- location information modulates body representation in the somatosensory cortex.
The findings reveal location information modulates body representation in the somatosensory cortex.
Professor Zhang’s findings provide transformative insights into our understanding of how spatial information is processed and integrated into the brain, as well as functional operations of the somatosensory cortex in the context of rehabilitation with brain-machine interfaces.
Dr. Si Bailu, a professor in School of Systems Science at Beijing Normal University, believes that the finding from Professor Zhang’s lab has opened up another frontier in systems neuroscience. This work is expected to provide new therapeutic targets for research and treatment of some neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, as well as significant inspirations for interdisciplinary fields such as brain-computer interaction.
Zhang and his team's work is expected to provide new therapeutic targets for the research and treatment of some neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.