4 ms·

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

155 points by denzil_correa 12y ago

maaaats 12y ago
My student newspaper has written about the Moser couple and their research several times [1][2]. It's in Norwegian, though, so not sure how much of use it is to share (edit: apparently we have an English version of the second article, see response to this post). Does anyone have good resources about their research for a layman? Most international articles I've found contain very little other than the same stuff in this press release. [1]: http://dusken.no/artikkel/24478/ett-kart-for-alle-rom/ http://dusken.no/artikkel/24478/ett-kart-for-alle-rom/ [2]: http://dusken.no/artikkel/22614/hjernefamilie/ http://dusken.no/artikkel/22614/hjernefamilie/
- chillax 12y ago
  Perhaps this? http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/science/may-britt-and-edvard-moser-explore-the-brains-gps.html?_r=2& http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/science/may-britt-and-edva... Also some videos linked in sidebar here: http://www.ntnu.edu/kavli/outreach http://www.ntnu.edu/kavli/outreach
- return0 12y ago
  Their own review paper "Place cells, grid cells, and the brain's spatial representation system." gives a good overview of their research directions i believe. It can get pretty technical though, and it's behind a paywall: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18284371 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18284371
- flakk 12y ago
  Desk editor and fellow hacker at dusken.no here. For international viewers, an English version of [2] is available here: http://dusken.no/artikkel/22627/a-brainy-family/ http://dusken.no/artikkel/22627/a-brainy-family/ I'm stuck at home with a herniated disk, but more is probably getting translated as we go along.
  - sdegutis 12y ago
    Now to find a way to fit "dask" and "dosk" in your comment somewhere...
bl 12y ago
The Mosers' work is very much deserving recognition. They've made fundamental discoveries with really beautiful experiments (well-designed, well-executed, thorough). On a personal note, I referenced their work on place cells as a possible use of phenomena I was studying in my own research. And I wasn't even aware of their ideas when I started (they occupied a slightly different sub-field of neuroscience). It's delightful to see the Mosers rewarded. Another item of note: During introductory neuroscience class, the idea was "Hippocampus, learning & memory. Hippocampus, learning & memory. Hippocampus, learning & memory." Perhaps not so brutally, and I may have missed some subtleties. I found it quite refreshing to learn that the hippocampus was involved so deeply in a task that wasn't so starkly "This arbitrary experimental task is aversive; I, mouse, must avoid it." Hippocampus...is there anything it can't do? <Leonard Nimoy: "The answer is yes."> Following is a neuroscientist's get-off-my-lawn rant or A Comment Wherein `bl Gripes about Stretched Tech Analogies Concerning Neuroscience. A GPS device receives signals from a set of beacons with well-established, fixed locations (i.e., geostationary satellites). Knowing the beacons' fixed locations, the device is able to triangulate its own position. A GPS device can go to a completely unfamiliar location and work exactly as well as when its at a location its been to hundreds of times. One could conceivably think of a mammalian visual system surmounted on a position-encoded cranium as equivalent to the GPS beacon system. But hippocampal place cells would have absolutely no contribution to navigating an unfamiliar environment because they had not been "trained".
- theoh 12y ago
  Better to avoid the gripe... GPS satellites are not in fixed locations, and triangulation is not used to determine position (it is calculated based on time of flight to 4+ satellites.) Sadly the ship has sailed on the use of GPS as a metaphor for "internal map". Since people don't know how it works there seems to be no possibility of correcting this trend. Another example is in the endorsement for this book: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Just-Freedom/ http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Just-Freedom/
  - bl 12y ago
    Drat! I committed an error similar to the one I was griping against: being technically sloppy. Believe it or not, I paused for half a heartbeat while typing fixed and triangulation while I was typing and thought to myself "Should I go double-check this on some hard-to-access reference, say Wikipedia? Nah. Better blurt this out before I head out the door for the day". I ought to be careful how I phrase my gripes so that they convey my intention: keeping discussions accurate about subjects which I know a bit. Poor metaphors seem to aggravate me more than most. Thanks for setting me straight.
motters 12y ago
See http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Grid_cells http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Grid_cells
- dbcooper 12y ago
  Why was this down-voted? The article was written and curated by two of the Nobel Prize recipients!
  - UweSchmidt 12y ago
    I didn't downvote, but it would be nice to read what the link is about before clicking on it and why people should care. "Here is the article by two of the Nobel Prize recipients. It's well written and quite accessible."
pj_mukh 12y ago
The early O'Keefe work was emulated in Robotics in RatSLAM (https://openslam.org/openratslam.html https://openslam.org/openratslam.html). These better cell models could potentially lead to better bio-mimicry in robotics.
kensai 12y ago
Neuroscience shall be winning a fair share of the Medicine Nobels in the future. Well-earned.
drturi 12y ago
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine GPS? NONSENSE! Be curious! http://www.drturi.com/the-2014-nobel-prize-in-physiology-or-medicine-gps-nonsense/ http://www.drturi.com/the-2014-nobel-prize-in-physiology-or-... RTpls
- psychometry 12y ago
  Hilarious site. It's always fun to step out of reality every once in a while.
drturi 12y ago
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine GPS? NONSENSE! Be curious! http://www.drturi.com/the-2014-nobel-prize-in-physiology-or-medicine-gps-nonsense/ http://www.drturi.com/the-2014-nobel-prize-in-physiology-or-... RTpls
etrautmann 12y ago
Had lunch with the Mosers last year - they're both a model of humble brilliance, and it's inspiring to see something as unconventional as a wife and husband team as co-PI's. A highly unusual but extremely effective system!

155 points by denzil_correa 12y ago

My student newspaper has written about the Moser couple and their research several times [1][2]. It's in Norwegian, though, so not sure how much of use it is to share (edit: apparently we have an English version of the second article, see response to this post). Does anyone have good resources about their research for a layman? Most international articles I've found contain very little other than the same stuff in this press release. [1]: http://dusken.no/artikkel/24478/ett-kart-for-alle-rom/ http://dusken.no/artikkel/24478/ett-kart-for-alle-rom/ [2]: http://dusken.no/artikkel/22614/hjernefamilie/ http://dusken.no/artikkel/22614/hjernefamilie/

chillax 12y ago
Perhaps this? http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/science/may-britt-and-edvard-moser-explore-the-brains-gps.html?_r=2& http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/science/may-britt-and-edva... Also some videos linked in sidebar here: http://www.ntnu.edu/kavli/outreach http://www.ntnu.edu/kavli/outreach
return0 12y ago
Their own review paper "Place cells, grid cells, and the brain's spatial representation system." gives a good overview of their research directions i believe. It can get pretty technical though, and it's behind a paywall: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18284371 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18284371
flakk 12y ago
Desk editor and fellow hacker at dusken.no here. For international viewers, an English version of [2] is available here: http://dusken.no/artikkel/22627/a-brainy-family/ http://dusken.no/artikkel/22627/a-brainy-family/ I'm stuck at home with a herniated disk, but more is probably getting translated as we go along.
- sdegutis 12y ago
  Now to find a way to fit "dask" and "dosk" in your comment somewhere...

bl 12y ago

The Mosers' work is very much deserving recognition. They've made fundamental discoveries with really beautiful experiments (well-designed, well-executed, thorough). On a personal note, I referenced their work on place cells as a possible use of phenomena I was studying in my own research. And I wasn't even aware of their ideas when I started (they occupied a slightly different sub-field of neuroscience). It's delightful to see the Mosers rewarded. Another item of note: During introductory neuroscience class, the idea was "Hippocampus, learning & memory. Hippocampus, learning & memory. Hippocampus, learning & memory." Perhaps not so brutally, and I may have missed some subtleties. I found it quite refreshing to learn that the hippocampus was involved so deeply in a task that wasn't so starkly "This arbitrary experimental task is aversive; I, mouse, must avoid it." Hippocampus...is there anything it can't do? <Leonard Nimoy: "The answer is yes."> Following is a neuroscientist's get-off-my-lawn rant or A Comment Wherein `bl Gripes about Stretched Tech Analogies Concerning Neuroscience. A GPS device receives signals from a set of beacons with well-established, fixed locations (i.e., geostationary satellites). Knowing the beacons' fixed locations, the device is able to triangulate its own position. A GPS device can go to a completely unfamiliar location and work exactly as well as when its at a location its been to hundreds of times. One could conceivably think of a mammalian visual system surmounted on a position-encoded cranium as equivalent to the GPS beacon system. But hippocampal place cells would have absolutely no contribution to navigating an unfamiliar environment because they had not been "trained".

theoh 12y ago
Better to avoid the gripe... GPS satellites are not in fixed locations, and triangulation is not used to determine position (it is calculated based on time of flight to 4+ satellites.) Sadly the ship has sailed on the use of GPS as a metaphor for "internal map". Since people don't know how it works there seems to be no possibility of correcting this trend. Another example is in the endorsement for this book: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Just-Freedom/ http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Just-Freedom/
- bl 12y ago
  Drat! I committed an error similar to the one I was griping against: being technically sloppy. Believe it or not, I paused for half a heartbeat while typing fixed and triangulation while I was typing and thought to myself "Should I go double-check this on some hard-to-access reference, say Wikipedia? Nah. Better blurt this out before I head out the door for the day". I ought to be careful how I phrase my gripes so that they convey my intention: keeping discussions accurate about subjects which I know a bit. Poor metaphors seem to aggravate me more than most. Thanks for setting me straight.

motters 12y ago

See http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Grid_cells http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Grid_cells

dbcooper 12y ago
Why was this down-voted? The article was written and curated by two of the Nobel Prize recipients!
- UweSchmidt 12y ago
  I didn't downvote, but it would be nice to read what the link is about before clicking on it and why people should care. "Here is the article by two of the Nobel Prize recipients. It's well written and quite accessible."

pj_mukh 12y ago

The early O'Keefe work was emulated in Robotics in RatSLAM (https://openslam.org/openratslam.html https://openslam.org/openratslam.html). These better cell models could potentially lead to better bio-mimicry in robotics.

kensai 12y ago

Neuroscience shall be winning a fair share of the Medicine Nobels in the future. Well-earned.

drturi 12y ago

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine GPS? NONSENSE! Be curious! http://www.drturi.com/the-2014-nobel-prize-in-physiology-or-medicine-gps-nonsense/ http://www.drturi.com/the-2014-nobel-prize-in-physiology-or-... RTpls

psychometry 12y ago
Hilarious site. It's always fun to step out of reality every once in a while.

drturi 12y ago

etrautmann 12y ago

Had lunch with the Mosers last year - they're both a model of humble brilliance, and it's inspiring to see something as unconventional as a wife and husband team as co-PI's. A highly unusual but extremely effective system!