(Newswire.net — December 23, 2014) — UK scientist have decoded of the precise location of the human brain that controls people’s sense of direction. Which explains why some people tend to be lost and disoriented while others could easily navigate. The scientist conducted research, which exposed the brain’s center for orientation, which does not correspond adequately to stimuluses’ our sensors detect.
Relaying on our eyes, ears or other senses doesn’t mean we are able to pinpoint our exact location. A typical example is the fact that most of us could easily feel lost and disoriented inside the maze, some more than others.
UK scientists believe they resolved the ‘mystery’ and defined what makes us better or worse ‘navigators’. They published their results in the prestigious science journal Current Biology.
The report indicates that people tend to get lost when their internal navigational compass cannot maintain pace with their nerve signals. Scientists found that people with expressed navigational skills have more robust nerve signals in what the scientists describe as the brain’s ‘internal compass’. So we all have a system, but it can be more or less wired.
In their research, University College London (UCL) researchers proved what was in domain of a theory which holds there is a precise location in the brain assigned to resolve our sense of direction.
Scientists were actually in pursuit of the relationship between Alzheimer’s and the deteriorating sense of direction, detecting the brains center for the orientation, the cold brains ‘internal compass’.
Scientists requested 16 volunteers to memorize a virtual courtyard. They were then asked to navigate around the space, relying on memory alone. While roaming the virtual courtyard, their brains patterns were scanned using a high-tech MRI machine.
According to the scientists, the brain scans showed a repeating pattern of impulses on the exact location attributable to the brain’s compass. Scans showed nerve cell activity in the region each time the participants attempted to virtually make their way around the digital courtyard.
The researchers, who conducted the study, recorded stronger signal strength in the entorhinal cortex of the brain with navigators that could better define position and whereabouts in the virtual courtyard.
Upon results, scientists from the University College in London concluded that the entorhinal region is the location of the ‘brain’s navigational system.’
Dr. John Isaac of the independent scientific research charity, the Wellcome Trust, said the research is significant in helping us understand various brain diseases such as dementia.
“Why some people are better navigators than others is intrinsically interesting, but [the research] also helps us explain the processes that go wrong in degenerative diseases such as dementia, leaving people feeling lost and confused,” he told the BBC.