Topic: spatial coding

Recent empirical studies have revealed spatial tuning in traditionally non-spatial brain regions, as well as coding differences across species in traditionally spatial regions. These findings have in part motivated new models of cognitive mapping that make quantitative predictions at multiple levels of explanation. Taken together, these advances highlight a growing need to quantitatively compare spatial codes across brain regions, species, levels of explanation, and against computational models. To address this need, here we leverage a Representational Similarity Analysis framework to quantita

Neural circuit computations are modulated by combinations of internal and external factors. For example, neurons in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) change their firing patterns or “remap” during a reward-seeking task, responding to changing task conditions and environmental cues. Why does this remapping occur? What unifying principles (if any) underlie remapping? Recent work proposes that remapping reflects hidden state inference—changes to an animal’s internal beliefs about the world. Recent experimental evidence suggests that remapping can indeed arise from latent behavioral or cognitive

The successor representation has emerged as a powerful model for understanding the spatial coding properties of hippocampal place cells and entorhinal grid cells. However, the diverse, spatially-tuned cells of the primary output of hippocampal neurons - the subiculum - have eluded a unified account. Here, we demonstrate that incorporating rodent behavioural biases into the successor representation reproduces the heterogeneous activity patterns of subicular neurons. Notably, this framework accounts for boundary vector and corner cells; neuronal types that are absent from upstream hippocampal re

Spatial navigation relies on external cues, such as visual objects, to anchor internal representations of space. In rodents, moving a visual landmark results in a corresponding shift in the tuning of head direction (HD) cells1. However, little is known about where visual objects are encoded in the mouse brain2 or how visual objects modulate the firing properties of HD cells3. Using functional ultrasound (fUS) imaging4, we conducted a brain-wide screen to identify areas preferentially activated by visual objects compared to scrambled versions of the same stimuli. Our results showed that while v

The spatial coding in the hippocampus (HPC) and its emergence during learning is well studied, but it is still unclear how the spatial information in the medial prefrontal cortex(mPFC) is changing between different learning stages. We recorded multiple unit activity using a combination of 24 movable tetrodes for the HPC and a Neuropixels silicon probe with 384 channels for the mPFC. We monitored the formation of spatial representations in both regions while the rat performed a spatial memory task on the radial eight-arm maze. The animal started in the center of the 8-arm maze and needed to loc

Semantic memory and abstraction of knowledge from experience are thought to involve communication between the hippocampus and neocortex. The hippocampus encodes novel episodes using sparse and orthogonal neural representations, which form and stabilize within ~10 minutes in a novel environment. Recent studies have shown that several neocortical areas, including the retrosplenial cortex (RSC), primary somatosensory cortex (S1), and primary visual cortex (V1) contain sparse neural coding correlated to spatial location in one-dimensional environments. This spatial coding depends on an intact hipp

Spatial cognition is crucial for navigation and survival and has been extensively studied in mammals, thereby revealing specialized cell types such as place cells, grid cells, and head direction cells. Avian species like titmice, quails, barn owls, streaked shearwaters, and black-capped chickadees also exhibit these cell types. Despite pigeons demonstrating remarkable spatial cognition and navigation abilities, the neural basis remains poorly understood. Previous research suggests that spatial coding in neurons, such as place cells, can be influenced by factors like distances from walls or env

For an animal to obtain multiple resources in the environment, its navigation plans must be flexibly updated. This ability is thought to be supported by the hippocampus playing a pivotal role in not only mapping the animal’s own position but also replaying goal-directed paths. Whether and how spatially-tuned neurons in the hippocampus can also discriminate behavioral contexts targeting different destinations remain, however, unclear.By using a navigation task that requires frequent updates in goal locations, we found that, while a majority of place cells in the hippocampal CA1 maintained the s

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has a broad role in cognitive flexibility and executive function, as well as long-term memory consolidation. These distinct functions are reconciled by the mPFC’s role in context-dependent decision making, which requires the evaluation and selection of representations that are relevant for a particular goal.The hippocampus and mPFC interact via direct and indirect pathways. Coordinated activity between these regions occurs both during hippocampal theta and sharp-wave ripples (SWRs) and is correlated with performance during tasks that rely on spatial informat

Recent research has focused on spatial coding of other moving agents or moving objects (Stangl et al., 2020). Oscillatory power in the medial temporal lobe of a seated observer is sensitive to the spatial location of a watched moving other individual (Stangl et al., 2020). The hippocampus also encodes predictions about when a moving target will hit a boundary on a 2D display (Polti et al., 2021). Using a 2D display and joystick, monkey dorsal anterior cingulate cortex activity predicts a moving target’s future location. (Yoo et al., 2021). However, it remains untested whether the encoding syst