Head direction cells


"If you’ve spent any time navigating a city, you’ve surely employed your own head direction system. 

"Knierim recalls walking in Manhattan; he thought he was heading east. 'When I hit the corner, and I’m expecting to see Second Avenue, and I see Lexington Avenue [instead] —my whole head, you know, my own perception of the world just spun around,' he said. 'I can literally feel it inside.' 

"When he realized his internal map was misaligned, he could feel it twist around him as his mental space caught up with his physical one.

"Not much is known about the neural basis of our own sense of direction. Head direction cells have not yet been located in humans, though there is some evidence that they exist. 

"'We do have the same brain structure [as rodents and bats], so it’s not too crazy to think that those brain structures then have similar function,' Dudchenko said. 

"Certainly, our experiences navigating our environments suggest that we have a sense of direction (some more than others)."



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