Shapiro Matthew
Department of Neuroscience and the Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York.
Hippocampus. 2015 Jun;25(6):690-6. doi: 10.1002/hipo.22448. Epub 2015 May 2.
The 2014 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine is an enormous triumph for John O'Keefe and May-Britt and Edvard Moser and an historic event for cognitive and behavioral neuroscience. Neuronal representations decoded from action potentials form a mechanistic bridge between brain and mind and demonstrate the continuity of psychology with biology and physical science. The cognitive map theory powered an ongoing, international research program inspired by Hebb (The Organization of Behavior. New York, NY: Wiley) that showed the way toward linking specific patterns of neuronal activity to high level representation and processing. The prize celebrates a path that led from fundamental, philosophical questions about psychological space to enduring, scientific facts: place, head direction, grid, and boundary fields in the hippocampus, presubiculum, entorhinal cortex, and other brain circuits provide a cellular basis for spatial behavior, learning, and memory. By awarding this prize, the Nobel committee affirmed neuroethology and comparative psychology, marked the end of a chapter in one debate about the existence of animal cognition, and recognized cognitive neurophysiology. The "inner GPS" in the brain" demonstrates "a cellular basis for higher cognitive function." Animals represent, process, and use information defined by abstract relationships among items (O'Keefe and Conway,) to guide flexible, goal-directed actions. Beyond raising the ontological status of "animal mind," the committee agreed that abstract mental representations can be investigated rigorously by recording single unit activity in the brain of behaving animals.
2014年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖对于约翰·奥基夫以及梅-布里特和爱德华·莫泽而言是巨大的胜利，对于认知与行为神经科学来说则是一个历史性事件。从动作电位解码出的神经元表征在脑与心智之间搭建起一座机制性桥梁，展现了心理学与生物学及物理科学的连续性。认知地图理论推动了一项受赫布（《行为的组织》，纽约，NY：威利出版社）启发而开展的持续的国际研究项目，该项目指明了将神经元活动的特定模式与高级表征及处理相联系的方向。该奖项表彰了一条从关于心理空间的基本哲学问题通向持久科学事实的道路：海马体、前扣带回、内嗅皮质及其他脑回路中的位置、头部方向、网格和边界场为空间行为、学习和记忆提供了细胞基础。通过授予该奖项，诺贝尔委员会肯定了神经行为学和比较心理学，标志着一场关于动物认知存在与否的辩论的一个篇章的结束，并认可了认知神经生理学。大脑中的 “内在GPS” 证明了 “高级认知功能的细胞基础”。动物通过表征、处理和利用由项目间抽象关系定义的信息（奥基夫和康威）来指导灵活的、目标导向的行动。除了提升 “动物心智” 的本体论地位外，委员会还一致认为，通过记录行为动物大脑中的单单元活动，可以对抽象心理表征进行严格研究。
