On October 6, 2014 (September 13, 2014 in the lunar calendar), three people including John Okeith, the discoverer of the brain's "navigation system", won the Nobel Prize. John O'Keefe, May Bright and Edward Moser At around 17:30 on October 6, 2014, the Karolin Medical School in Sweden announced in Stockholm that it would award the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to British scientist John O'Keefe, and the Norway scientists May Britt Moser and Edward Moser in recognition of their significant contribution to discovering the cells that make up the brain's positioning system. John O'Keefe, May Bright and Edward Mossel won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The three scientists solved a problem that has plagued scientists and philosophers for centuries-how the brain produces a map of the environment in which we live and navigates us, the group of cells that control our sense of direction. Reason for the award: Discovery of built-in GPS in the brain. The discovery of "GPS" in the brain is useful for neuromedicine research, especially Alzheimer's disease. For two studies under the same topic, John O'Keefe received 1/2 of the prize money, and May Bright and Edward Mossel each received 1/4 of the prize money. Brain cells are like navigation systems. Over the past few thousand years, humans have invented and applied many different navigation tools, such as maps, compasses, and latitude and longitude lines. Nature's development is far ahead of humans, and it seems that these tools have been "implanted" into the human brain to ensure our survival. Hugo, a behavioral neuroscientist at University College London Spears told the BAEsti-valve of Science held at the University of Liverpool that our brains contain navigation systems like satellite navigation systems, which include embedded maps, coordinates and compasses. The navigation system in the brain is located in an area of the brain called the hippocampus. This area is the main site for memory formation. The hippocampus serves as a switching station during the memory process. When neurons in the cerebral cortex receive various sensory or perceptual messages, they pass them on to the hippocampus. If the hippocampus responds, neurons begin to form a persistent network that forms memories; but if this recognition pattern is not passed, the experience received in the brain automatically disappears. Sponsored by the Wellcome Trust and Professor Eleanor t of University College London Research conducted by Maguire showed that the hippocampus is also responsible for spatial navigation, which is particularly evident among London taxi drivers. Research has shown that a certain area in the hippocampus of London taxi drivers is several times larger than that of ordinary people, while the relevant area of bus drivers is almost the same as that of ordinary people. This means that ordinary navigation skills are not related to the size of the hippocampus. The real key lies in the urban street distribution system that London taxi drivers have built in their minds over the years. In follow-up research, Dr. Spears and Professor Maguire used the video game PS2 Escape to investigate how taxi drivers operate the hippocampus and other areas of the brain needed for navigation. While taxi drivers use analog video game consoles to navigate London streets, they are scanned with a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine. Magnetic resonance imaging, or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), is a very effective non-interventional technique for studying brain function and has become the most widely used method of brain function research. Although it is a non-interventional technology, it can accurately locate specific active cortex areas of the brain, with a spatial resolution of up to 2 millimeters, and can repeatedly scan objects in various ways. Another feature of fMRI is that it can track signal changes in real time, such as tracking the brain's thinking activities in a few seconds, or signal changes in cognitive experiments, with a temporal resolution of up to 1 second. A large number of brain science researchers have begun to engage in functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging research and apply it to cognitive neuroscience. Researchers found that when drivers first thought about the route ahead, their hippocampus was most active. In contrast, when drivers encounter roadblocks, discover familiar landmarks, view scenery along the border, or consider customers 'thoughts, activity in other areas of the brain increases significantly. To further confirm the research results, Dr. Spears and Professor Maguire also studied a taxi driver who had amnesia due to severe damage to the hippocampus of the brain. Experiments proved that the driver could only navigate the main street, but was helpless on winding, secondary streets. Dr. Spears said that the hippocampus plays a vital role in navigation and is similar to satellite navigation systems. London taxi drivers need to find their own routes through thousands of winding streets. They have an accurate and effective navigation system that is becoming stronger with continuous experience. As the taxi driver got closer to his destination, the activity in the medial prefrontal cortex became more active. However, we still don't know how the brain makes the right choice about the route, which is what Dr. Spears is studying. Scientists have identified three types of cells in the hippocampus and adjacent brain areas, namely place cells, head orientation cells and grid cells, which make up the navigation system in the brain. There are thousands of local cells in our brain, distributed in many small corners. After receiving spatial information from various sources, location cells can process this information to form a cognitive map in the hippocampus, or strengthen synaptic connections with cell clusters in the cortex to form a permanent memory of spatial location. Head-facing cells are head-facing dependent neurons. They are like a compass that can tell us which way we are facing. They play an important role in guiding animal movement and are influenced by factors such as environment, direction, and suggestion. And Edward of the University of Technology of Norway? The grid cells discovered by Professor Mossel's team in 2005 can tell us how far we have traveled through a grid model similar to longitude and latitude. It is these magical cells that build the navigation system in the human brain, laying a solid foundation for humans to realize self-navigation.