Remembering where things were: scientists discover a new type of brain cell that could help detect dementia
Dr Lever (left) and Dr Poulter (right) in the laboratory where Dr Poulter first discovered Vector Trace cells A NEW kind of brain cell has been discovered which will help to understand how we remember where we left objects, such as car keys and mobile phones. Damage to these cells may help explain memory loss in certain kinds of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease. The existence of GPS-like brain cells, which can store maps of the places we’ve been, like our kitchen or a beach on holiday, was already widely known, but this discovery shows there is also a type of brain cell sensitive to the distance and direction of objects that can store object locations on these maps.