Grant: Operating Grant

Minotaur was a mythological creature with a head of a bull and body of a man. Since he was ferocious and killed several humans, he was locked to the middle of a labyrinth built by Daedalus. What prevented him from escaping? With time he could have learned to navigate in the labyrinth and escape. However, this is only possible when we have sufficient external clues and information about the surrounding environment and can build an internal map about the space where we need to navigate. We can find our way in space when we have internal maps built with the cooperation of cells transmitting information about our relative position in space, speed and the borders of the environment. This process is chiefly regulated by the entorhinal cortex which sends input to the hippocampus where spatial information is stored as memory. The aim of our study is to understand how neurones in these two regions communicate and integrate these signals to provide reliable spatial navigation and orientation. How do different types of cells in this network determine the activity of their targets? How information collected by cortical cells is transmitted to hippocampal cells that are responsible for preparing this information for long-term storage. This interaction between spatial navigation and memory formation is essential for survival: squirrels need to find hidden food, and mice can find the fastest escape route when a predator approaches. Humans have been shown to have similar brain activity during spatial navigation. Alteration in this highly regulated process can result in severe problems with memory formation during pathological processes and normal aging. In order to alleviate these problems it is essential to understand the intricate interaction between these key brain regions. We will register the activity of single cells and determine how these individual computing units transform incoming signals about space and transmit it to the part of the brain that will form memories.