Do we have a built-in version of Google Maps in our brains?
Based on recent research with rats, BU scientists believe the answer is yes. And that knowledge could have groundbreaking implications for autonomous navigation.
In a study published in Nature Communications last summer, Michael Hasselmo (above), director of BU’s Center for Systems Neuroscience and professor of psychological and brain sciences, along with BU researchers Jake Hinman and William Chapman, confirmed the presence of specialized brain cells that provide rats with personal maps of their surroundings, allowing them to consider boundaries and obstacles in relation to themselves. Researchers believe that human brains likely have these neurons too, although further research is needed.
The study was partially funded by a $7.5 million multidisciplinary grant from the Department of Defense to explore bioinspired control systems. Hasselmo, the rat study’s principal investigator, says the spatial knowledge derived from rodent behavior could ultimately be leveraged to create smarter autonomous vehicles and robots that could find their way around obstacles as well as living organisms.
“It’s easier to have robots working in warehouses that have empty floors . . . . It’s all very predictable,” he says. “But it’s much harder for a robot to go across uneven terrain . . . . One [application for this research] would be for rescue-type operations or salvage-type operations.”