Making Space: How the Brain Knows Where Things Are

In manual-like prose, Duke University neurobiologist Groh describes complex tactics our brains employ simply to tell us where we—and other objects—are. Our senses guide spatial processing, she says, but memory is key, too. Ants, who travel far to bring food to the nest, offer proof that memory fuels navigation. When researchers placed some ants on stilts, and shortened the legs of others, the stilted ants overshot the nest, and their short-legged brethren undershot it. The conclusion: ants “count” steps. As Groh progresses, she notes that “memory aids our sense of space, and our sense of space helps us remember.” She details how excitatory and inhibitory neurons and synapses forge—and are forged by—the sensory maps and quantitative meters in the brain that help orchestrate the above. Groh postulates that the way the brain thinks about location may echo the way it thinks, period. As cognitive brain areas share space with areas dedicated to space and movement, “perhaps ‘thinking’ also involves activating some subset of sensory and motor pathways.” Groh’s technical little tome lacks the metaphors and stories that make science accessible, but the exciting neuroscience frontier it traverses may keep intensely curious readers following. [em](Nov.) [/em]