Completed Brain & Nervous System Cells, Biochemistry & Physiology

Space distortions: Towards a general framework of the hippocampal cognitive map

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation University of Cambridge
Funding £1.4M
Period Nov 2017 — Nov 2022

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

The brain’s grid and place cells fire in patterns that map physical space, but no one knows how they actually work together to guide navigation. This matters because the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex are the brain’s internal GPS. Without understanding how grid cells and place cells interact, we cannot explain how animals—including humans—find their way, remember locations, or build mental maps. Current models disagree on which cell type leads and which follows. The researchers will test two competing ideas: that grid cells provide a metric for distance, or that they act as a proximity matrix. They will also perturb single cells to see how the whole network and the animal’s navigation ability respond. This is fundamental science. It will not produce a navigation app or a medical treatment tomorrow. But understanding how the brain constructs spatial representations could eventually inform treatments for spatial memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease, where the entorhinal cortex is among the first regions damaged. It may also inspire more efficient algorithms for autonomous navigation systems. For now, the goal is to settle a basic question about how the brain builds a map of the world.

View original technical description
A fundamental question in system neuroscience is where spatial cognition is generated and how it is used for navigation. Strong evidence points at the hippocampus as a cognitive map. Hippocampal place cells are active in restricted fields and hippocampal lesion impairs navigation. Recent experiments showed that spatial representations are also found in the entorhinal cortex, an interface between the hippocampus and neocortex. Entorhinal grid cells are active in many fields arranged in equilateral triangles. How these cells interact to provide a cognitive space remains elusive. It has been suggested that grid cells represent a spatial metric system and provide major inputs to the place cells. A number of recent experiments indicate a greater role of place cells in constructing grid cell pattern. Here, we propose to investigate how these cells interact and what role they play in navigation. We will test whether grid cells act as a spatial metric of the brain. Alternatively, we suggested that they could act as a matrix system conveying the information about the proximity of locations. Furthermore, we will study how single-cell perturbations affect interconnected grid-place cell network as well as an animal’s ability to navigate.

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Researchers

Julija Krupic (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

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Spatial Representations of Depth: Do Cognitive Maps Facilitate Depth Perception?
What is the metric structure of the cognitive map?
Spatial coding in the hippocampal formation: boundaries and grids
Learning to Represent Space in the Brain

Original classification

Sir Henry Dale Fellowship

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