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[deleted] t1_iwdtvle wrote

"Grid cells" in the hippocampus. They're one of the few systems all mammals have seemingly fully functioning at birth. In a nutshell they're a network of neurons at the very center of your brain, responsible for remembering the order in which neural activity occurs. Think of it like taking all the frames of a movie and keeping them in order. The frames aren't stored there, more like the sequence of commands for regenerating the scene a la a computer generated scene in a video game.

They also play a very strong role in coordinating neural activity in general (in concert with other regions of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex), so that we can switch between thinking about past, present, and future. Pulses are sent out rhythmically, and on a task specific basis, to say "this idea is in the past, present, future, past, present, future, past past past, future, future," etc.

They're also very strongly implicated in our ability to think abstractly, however this doesn't mean that people who have poor direction sense have difficulties abstracting. The brain is complicated.

General primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_cell

Some details: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4364032/

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Krail t1_iwes61n wrote

Oh, that's really interesting. So that's perhaps the reason why we so often use spatial metaphors for time and for memorization?

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[deleted] t1_iwexc06 wrote

It's certainly not unrelated! Really every aspect of cognition is adapted to operate in a 1-4D space to some degree. One of the fundamental mechanisms of thought on a cellular and network level is anticipation: does the sequence of stimulation I'm receiving match a learned sequence? If yes does the sequence that follows meet what I expect? If so I will fire according to xyz parameters. If I'm very certain I might suppress the firing of my neighbors "I got this one guys!" (see "lateral inhibition")

This is part of the purpose of the theta wave signaling from the hippocampus. It helps to orchestrate a global sequence "before - during - after" so that in concert we can model a 4D simulation of reality in noodle-space.

Disruptions to the ability to consciously direct your attention to the present are typical in OCD, ADHD, Autism, and more, which share disruptions to parts of this network.

In ADHD, Autism, and Schizophrenia there are also disruptions in "lateral inhibition" to varying extents in various regions. Schizophrenia has more issues with audio processing (hearing voices), ADHD thinks like a seizure "and this is relevant and this, and together that makes this other thing, which is interesting because........", and people on the spectrum tend to be overwhelmed with sensory information. Lateral inhibition doesn't explain all of those conditions, but it seems to be an interesting part of them.

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okaythanksbud t1_iwgj1x1 wrote

Any chance this relates to the theta rythm? I watched a video on that and your description of their function reminds me of that

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