Neurons in rat brains responsible for monitoring speed identified

  neuroscience7 A team of researchers has isolated the neurons in the rat brain that are responsible for monitoring speed as rats run, walk or stop moving around. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the team describes how they found the neurons and what it might mean for other mammalian brains.

To make this discovery the researchers created a rat sized car that allows for monitoring neural activity while the rat uses its feet and legs to move about. The team describes it as similar to Fred Flintstone's car, of comic fame. 

Twenty six rats had probes placed into their brains before being put in the ratmobile. The probes (which were so sensitive they could capture single nerve activity) were inserted in a part of the brain known as the entorhinal cortex—the same general area where grid cells had been identified previously. The rats were then incited to move at different rates of speed as the team members watched. They found that a group of neurons fired in step with the speed at which the rat was moving.

The team conducted over 2,000 rat-moving sessions while studying a group of 2,497 cells, 15 percent of which turned out to be those they were looking for—the ones that would fire in ways that mimicked the speed at which the rats traveled. So clear was the response, the team reports, that they were able to accurately predict how fast a rat was moving by watching how fast its neurons were firing.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14622.html
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