Richard Morris on how we know where we are

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2016

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

How do we know where we are? The question sounds simple enough. But there's much more to it than simply looking around. Our sense of place is embedded in the very structure of our brains, in such a way that we can remember the exact place we used to play as a child, even if the neighbourhood has been transformed and few of the original visual cues remain. The park you played in as a child may now be full of high rise flats but somehow you know where your favourite tree used to be. Richard Morris has devoted his Life Scientific to trying to understand this profound sense of place and in 2016 was awarded the prestigious Brain Prize for his work on brain cells and circuits. Over the years, he's performed thousands of of experiments on rats in water mazes, an experimental tool that he invented in the eighties and that's now used in labs all over the world. And, in one of his latest experiments, he set up a rat restaurant. Producer: Anna Buckley.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Life Scientific.
0:03.6	First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
0:06.2	I'm Jumal Kiele and my mission is to interview the most fascinating and important
0:11.0	scientists alive today and to find out what makes them tick.
0:15.0	How do we know where we are?
0:18.0	The question sounds simple enough, but it turns out there's much more to it than simply looking around.
0:24.0	Our sense of place is embedded in the very structure of our brains,
0:28.0	in such a way that we can remember the exact place we used to play as a child even if the neighborhood has been
0:34.1	transformed and few of the original visual cues remain. The park you played in as
0:38.6	a child may now be full of high-rise flats, but somehow you know where your
0:42.2	favorite tree used to be. It's as if our brains have an
0:45.8	internal GPS. And it's understanding this profound sense of place that has preoccupied my
0:51.7	guest this morning, and won him the 2016 brain
0:54.7	prize. Richard Morris started his life scientific studying physics but has
0:59.3	devoted the last 50 years to understanding what happens in brain cells and circuits that
1:04.9	allows information like this to be stored. Professor Richard Morris,
1:08.4	welcome to the Life Scientific. Thank you very much. Firstly many
1:11.8	congratulations on winning the 2016 Brain Prize.
1:15.0	It was a great surprise and a great pleasure to have it with two great friends
1:20.0	who are also great scientists.
1:21.3	And you must have been delighted.
1:23.2	I was thrilled and surprised.
	...

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