The grid or grid patterns created in the brain, which are believed to guide us in navigation, something like the brain’s GPS , are modified by the shape of our environment according to the latest study carried out by researchers from University College London (UK). This would mean that the way the brain measures distance is not a universal indicator for the brain’s navigation system . The study has been published in the journal Nature .
To reach this conclusion, the scientists conducted an experiment with mice. They studied the lattice patterns created in the entorhinal cortex part of the brain of 41 rats that fed in three types of environments: circular, square or trapezoidal. The results revealed that the influence of the environment was strong enough to cause distortions in the spaces perceived by the rodents.
“If we imagine that the pattern produced by the cells of the grid is a rule for our brain to measure distance, we are seeing that a bending and stretching of this appreciation occurs depending on the geometry of our external environment”, explains Julija Krupic, a co-author of the study.
And it is that network cells in the brain seem to form an internal map of the local environment by signaling to create a “pattern” that helps animals move , even in the dark. Until now, all of these patterns were believed to be hexagonal; This new research dispels this theory as it shows that the grid patterns are distorted to align with the geometry of the local environment, changing the distance between these brain regions.
“We know that other cells involved in the brain’s GPS system such as place cells and border cells are affected by the geometry of the environment and now we see that the same is true for cells in the grid. Our next step will be to find out why network models change according to our environment ”, clarifies John O’Keefe, leader of the study.
