Even before we begin to explore the world, the brain may already have a sort of internal map, ‚like a GPS‘, ready to help us find our way around it. This hypothesis, which is still being researched, fascinates the 2014 Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Norwegian neuroscientist May-Britt Moser, who has spent decades trying to unravel how we know how to find our way.
«It seems we might have an internal map that is ready for us when we start moving around and exploring,» explains Moser in an interview with EFE, although she points out that the findings she is currently working on have not yet been published.
Moser refers to the philosopher Immanuel Kant and the possibility that, in order to experience the world, the brain requires certain pre-existing structures that enable it to organise what it perceives.
Grid cells: Research into the innate internal map is being carried out on rats
But did those structures actually exist?
The Norwegian neuroscientist is now trying to find out whether one of these structures exists before an animal (rats, in her case) begins to move around and learn about its environment.
The clue comes from the so-called ‚grid cells‘ that Moser discovered together with her husband, Edvard Moser, and which led to the pair sharing the Nobel Prize with the British neuroscientist John O’Keefe.
These neurons fire according to a very regular ’spatial pattern‘; by plotting the locations where a single cell fires as a rat moves, equilateral triangles can be drawn between its different fields of activity, as she explained in her presentation.
This level of precision continues to surprise Moser, she says, precisely because the brain is a biological system and, as such, one would expect far more noise and far more errors.
«As the brain is a biological system, one would expect there to be many errors. And if there were many errors, we would never see a pattern like the one we observe in the grid cells, where equilateral triangles can be fitted between each field of activity as the animal moves through its environment. It’s incredible,» she insists.
The torus structure remains active even whilst you sleep
Thus, the geometry becomes even stranger when scientists simultaneously record the activity of numerous grid cells and use mathematical tools to represent it in three dimensions.
What emerges, then, is a ‚torus‘, a doughnut-shaped surface along which neural activity appears to travel, a sort of map that, moreover, would not fade away when the outside world disappears.
«This internal map remains active even when the animal is asleep, so it does not need any external information to continue functioning. It is simply the way the cells are connected that makes this pattern possible,» she adds, noting that it remains unclear whether this architecture or framework exists before the animal begins to explore.
Moser is confident that the combination of new technologies capable of recording thousands of neurons, improved mathematical theories and computational models will lead to enormous advances in our understanding of the brain over the coming years.
Artificial intelligence is set to support research into consciousness
«But, as Professor Geoffrey Hinton (who was present at Starmus and is regarded as the godfather of AI) said, understanding how we come to have that sense of being alive, of being conscious, can be quite difficult,» Moser reflects.
Artificial intelligence, she adds, could well become a tool for investigating this, not least because it allows us to compare how a machine and a human brain perform similar tasks.
AI risks do not alter Moser's hope
When asked whether she is an optimist or a ‚doomer‘, a catastrophist, in English, when it comes to AI, Moser points out that if hope is lost, the only path left is surrender.
«But I think we need hope,» replies the neuroscientist, who believes that tools can be used both to do good and to cause harm, and that artificial intelligence does not eliminate this age-old human trait, although it can greatly amplify its consequences, she adds.
«It becomes dangerous if malicious people use the tool to become even more malicious. But they can also use their brains to be malicious,» she says.
Faced with an international situation that she describes as «depressing» when she considers the news, she calls for cooperation, science and education, and highlights individuals capable of mobilising many others, from Malala Yousafzai to Greta Thunberg and Jane Goodall.
Moser therefore points out that, faced with this bleak scenario, she does not see machines as having intellectual superiority either.
«For now, I think the brain is the best tool we have,» she concludes.
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