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Spatial navigation and memory are essential aspects of our daily lives. Without these skills, we would have difficulty navigating our environment and remembering past experiences. However, the neural basis of spatial memory is not well understood. A study group led by Prof. Lukas Kunz, who recently joined the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), discovered new information about this knowledge gap. He discovered, together with scientists from New York and Freiburg, that different types of nerve cells are activated simultaneously during spatial memory and are coordinated by brain waves (“waves”). The results have been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Associative memory allows different pieces of information to be linked together. “In the context of spatial memory, associative memory allows us to remember the location of certain objects in the spatial environment,” explains Professor Kunz, leader of the Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience research group at the UKB Department of Epileptology. He is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) “Life and Health” at the University of Bonn. “For example, we can remember where in the house we left the keys.” However, at advanced ages or in certain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, this capacity is limited. “It is therefore important to investigate the neural basis of different forms of human memory,” said Professor Kunz. In the long term, this could help develop new therapies for memory problems.
Nerve cells are active while information is retrieved from memory. To further investigate this phenomenon, the researchers recorded the activity of individual nerve cells in epilepsy patients performing a memory task. “In a virtual world, participants were asked to remember the location of different objects,” explains Professor Kunz. The recordings showed that different types of nerve cells were activated during this memory task. Some nerve cells responded to certain objects, while others activated in response to certain places. The scientists observed that interactions between different types of nerve cells became stronger over time when participants remembered the correct object in the correct place.
In addition to place and object neurons, the researchers observed hippocampal brain waves (“ripples”) that also occurred during the memory task, presumably playing a crucial role in the formation and retrieval of associative memories. “The waves could be important for the connection of different types of nerve cells and the formation of complex memories. It will be interesting to investigate this idea further in future studies,” explains Professor Kunz. It will also be interesting to study how memory performance is modulated when the waves are suppressed or activated, which will provide insight into the causal relevance of the waves.
Professor Kunz intends to continue the findings he obtained with his colleagues at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Columbia University in New York and the University of Freiburg at the University Hospital in Bonn. “The department of epileptology at UKB is known for its excellent brain research. The department has the unique opportunity to record the activity of individual nerve cells in the human brain in the EEG video monitoring unit, which is the heart of all epilepsy. This provides interesting insights into the functioning of the human brain, something that is only possible in a few research centers around the world,” describes Professor Kunz.
In its interdisciplinary research, it relies on close exchange with other researchers and doctors, which is essential for the development of new research ideas. (ME TOO)
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)