MDR WISSEN News: New Findings From Brain Research: How Do We Remember?

Astronauts and cosmonauts Soyuz MS-22Missions will likely remain on the International Space Station for several months longer. This is certain NASA And Roscosmos Wednesday afternoon. Three astronauts, who had originally docked in September, were originally scheduled to return with their capsule in March. After the coolant leaks, the capsule should now pass through Soyuz MS-23 To protect the crew from excessive temperatures with high humidity. On the other hand, MS-22 is supposed to return to Earth without a pilot.

For many centuries, people have worked to create accurate maps of the Earth’s surface. So that we don’t have to wait long for the Moon, Mars and co, researchers from the Universities of Bremen, Padua and Bologna have developed a way to include artificial intelligence (AI) in assessing the large amounts of data that are generated when recording celestial bodies. The result is an open-source build kit that can be further improved and that, according to the researchers, represents “an efficient, simple, and inexpensive way to map planets in space.” They demonstrated their operational ability using a section of Mars as an example.

And in their gestures, Notes show that on wild chimpanzees in Uganda. An example of this is contact by tearing leaves. The Ugandan group of chimpanzees did this in a way that was unique to them, which the researchers interpreted as a gesture dialect different from the gestures of other groups. Neither habitat nor genes are responsible for this. In addition, it can be seen that a female chimpanzee from another group was able to correctly interpret the accent. This speaks of the ability to learn in adulthood.

At the beginning of the year, brain researchers and neurologists published four exciting studies. In Freiburg and Bonn, research is being done on different aspects of remembering, in St. Gallen the cell development of young children is being examined, and in Marburg the question is how can we estimate the length of distances.

Human memory is certainly one of the most exciting topics in brain research and is represented in two reports at the beginning of 2023: At the University of Bonn, the so-called “glial cells” were examined – the second type of master cells after neurons. A special group of these cells can be identified, which are “place cells” responsible for the fact that we learn spatial structures and can better orient ourselves. At the University of Freiburg, the question was how we remember – in particular how the brain coordinates current information from the outside with evocations of the past. In doing so, the researchers came across a special function of the zona incerta, a hitherto little-explored brain region where synapses control memory by reversing signals.

The good news comes from Switzerland, more specifically from researchers at Ostschweizer Kinderspital St. Gallen, that with the help of high-resolution ultrasound probes, it is now possible to perform scans of the brains of babies and young children that were previously not possible. . This includes examining brain development and synapses as well as diagnosing neurological disorders in young children or assessing the maturity of babies born prematurely.

Finally, at the University of Marburg, the neurologically exciting question of how we evaluate distances is pursued. The first results show that our brains have to work less when it comes to familiar routes than when we enter “uncharted territory”. It then shows activities especially when we think we’ve reached a goal, but not when the objectively set distance is over.