Discovery of the Brain’s Internal Movement Timer: A New Perspective on Navigation and Medical Applications
Recent studies are opening a new chapter in understanding how the human brain functions, particularly the mechanisms responsible for spatial orientation and distance measurement.
Researchers at the University of St.
Andrews have, for the first time, documented the so-called ‘internal walking clock’ in the brain by studying activity in rats during movement.
They discovered that specific nerve cells track the distance traveled step by step, functioning as an internal counter.
This mechanism was also confirmed in human brain studies, offering deeper insights into navigation and spatial awareness processes.
For the experiments, scientists built an arena for rats and trained them to cover a predetermined distance while recording brain activity related to memory and navigation areas.
It turned out that neurons activate in a patterned manner approximately every 30 centimeters of movement, effectively acting as a step counter.
This finding holds significant promise for medical diagnostics, especially for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders.
The researchers also conducted human experiments, where changing the arena’s shape led to errors in distance estimation — indicating the inner ‘distance counter’ is sensitive to external variables.
Experts emphasize that this mechanism is vital in forming our brain’s internal map of space and understanding memory impairments.
With further research, there is potential to develop diagnostic smartphone games for early dementia detection.
Additionally, scientists have recently developed an ultrasound helmet capable of non-invasively treating neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s by precisely targeting tiny brain regions without surgery or implants.