Researchers led by Prof. Dr. Emilie Macé, Head of the ‘Brain-wide Networks’ at the Department of Ophthalmology at the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), Co-Spokesperson for the Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Optogenetic Therapies at UMG, and Member of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Multiscale Bioimaging: From Molecular Machines to Networks of Excitable Cells (MBExC), have demonstrated that a brain region crucial for the internal compass, the postsubiculum, becomes active when mice observe objects. They also observed that, when viewing an object, the head direction cells tuned to that direction were more active than when no object was present. Conversely, head direction cells tuned to other directions were more strongly inhibited. Consequently, the direction of the object is represented more accurately by the head direction cells.
You can find the press release (in German) here.
Prof. Dr. Emilie Macé, MBExC (Photo: private)
