通常地图都使用互成直角的经线和纬线来帮助定位，而英国一项最新研究显示，人类大脑中的“导航系统”使用的却是由正三角形组成的网格。
英国伦敦大学学院的研究人员在《自然》杂志上报告说，他们首次确认人类大脑中存在这种利用正三角形网格来帮助定位的“网格细胞”。过去曾有研究发现实验鼠大脑中存在这种细胞。
研究人员因此设计了一套虚拟现实系统，请受试者戴上专用设备，“游览”虚拟的山谷草地等景色，同时利用功能磁共振成像技术测量受试者大脑相应区域的活动情况。结果发现，人类大脑中相应细胞的活动同样呈现出明显的正三角形网格模式，并且受试者的空间记忆能力越强，这种模式就越明显。
参与研究的卡斯韦尔·巴里说，这些网格细胞为大脑提供了空间认知地图，它们使用了与通常地图中经线和纬线非常相似的方式，所不同的是采用了三角形网格而不是方形网格。
网格细胞是大脑中最容易遭受早老性痴呆症等疾病影响的细胞之一，这也可以帮助解释为什么这些疾病的常见症状就是记不住路。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Nature advance online publication 20 January 2010 | doi:10.1038/nature08704
Evidence for grid cells in a human memory network
Christian F. Doeller1,2, Caswell Barry1,3,4 & Neil Burgess1,2
1 UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London WC1N 3AR, UK
2 UCL Institute of Neurology, London WC1N 3BG, UK
3 UCL Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, London WC1E 6BT, UK
4 UCL Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1H 0AP, UK
5 Correspondence to: Christian F. Doeller1,2Neil Burgess1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to C.F.D. or N.B.
Grid cells in the entorhinal cortex of freely moving rats provide a strikingly periodic representation of self-location1 which is indicative of very specific computational mechanisms2, 3, 4. However, the existence of grid cells in humans and their distribution throughout the brain are unknown. Here we show that the preferred firing directions of directionally modulated grid cells in rat entorhinal cortex are aligned with the grids, and that the spatial organization of grid-cell firing is more strongly apparent at faster than slower running speeds. Because the grids are also aligned with each other1, 5, we predicted a macroscopic signal visible to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans. We then looked for this signal as participants explored a virtual reality environment, mimicking the rats’ foraging task: fMRI activation and adaptation showing a speed-modulated six-fold rotational symmetry in running direction. The signal was found in a network of entorhinal/subicular, posterior and medial parietal, lateral temporal and medial prefrontal areas. The effect was strongest in right entorhinal cortex, and the coherence of the directional signal across entorhinal cortex correlated with spatial memory performance. Our study illustrates the potential power of combining single-unit electrophysiology with fMRI in systems neuroscience. Our results provide evidence for grid-cell-like representations in humans, and implicate a specific type of neural representation in a network of regions which supports spatial cognition and also autobiographical memory.
