Do our brains have a built-in GPS?

                3D GPS system which allows us to navigate around unfamiliar surroundings, scientists have claimed.

                They say we may possess cells that enable us to keep track of our position, which can become disorientated when we come out of a subway station, for example.And further understanding of the system could help us deal with effects such as vertigo.

                  The study, led by graduate student Arseny Finkelstein at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel and published in Nature, looked at cells in the brains of bats.

                  He founds that bats possessed 'place' and 'grid' cells that work like a GPS system to keep track of their position.And he found the cells were ubiquitous in other mammals such as rodents, suggesting humans, too, also had the ability to map their position in 3D space. 

                    Our research is the first in mammalian species that identifies this 3D system in the brain.'The study of a bat brain shed light on how mammals orient themselves in complex environments by relying on neurons that work in three dimensions. 

                      This system acts as an internal compass that gives animals - including humans - a continuous sense of direction and location as they move around. 

                       They found certain cells respond to the bats' horizontal and vertical orientation and these so-called head-direction cells track direction in three dimensions as the bats manoeuvre.

                        These cells create a doughnut-shaped, 3D neural compass that gives a precise orientation - and even enables the bat to know if it is upside down or upright.

                         Similarly, in humans, pilots are trained to guard against a sudden loss of vertical direction - vertigo - that renders them unable to tell 'up' from 'down' and sometimes even leads to crashes.

                         Coming up out of an underground station can produce similar confusion - for a few moments you are unsure which way to go until regaining your sense of direction.

                         In both cases the disorientation is believed to be caused by a temporary malfunction of the brain's 3D compass. 

                         'In order to start understanding brain mechanisms for 3D orientation, we need to start by identifying the basic building blocks,' Mr Finkelstein added.

                        The researchers described how the brains of bats contain neurons that sense which way the head is pointed to support navigation in 3D space.

                       Much research has been conducted on place and grid cells whose discoverers were awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

                      But until recently head-direction cells have been studied only in 2D settings in rats.