Space in the brain: how the hippocampal formation supports spatial cognition

TY - JOUR

T1 - Space in the brain

T2 - how the hippocampal formation supports spatial cognition

AU - Hartley, Tom

AU - Lever, Colin

AU - Burgess, Neil

AU - O'Keefe, John

N1 - © 2013 The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. This is an author produced pre-print version of a paper published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.

PY - 2014/2/5

Y1 - 2014/2/5

N2 - Over the past four decades, research has revealed that cells in the hippocampal formation provide an exquisitely detailed representation of an animal's current location and heading. These findings have provided the foundations for a growing understanding of the mechanisms of spatial cognition in mammals, including humans. We describe the key properties of the major categories of spatial cells: place cells, head direction cells, grid cells and boundary cells, each of which has a characteristic firing pattern that encodes spatial parameters relating to the animal's current position and orientation. These properties also include the theta oscillation, which appears to play a functional role in the representation and processing of spatial information. Reviewing recent work, we identify some themes of current research and introduce approaches to computational modelling that have helped to bridge the different levels of description at which these mechanisms have been investigated. These range from the level of molecular biology and genetics to the behaviour and brain activity of entire organisms. We argue that the neuroscience of spatial cognition is emerging as an exceptionally integrative field which provides an ideal test-bed for theories linking neural coding, learning, memory and cognition.

AB - Over the past four decades, research has revealed that cells in the hippocampal formation provide an exquisitely detailed representation of an animal's current location and heading. These findings have provided the foundations for a growing understanding of the mechanisms of spatial cognition in mammals, including humans. We describe the key properties of the major categories of spatial cells: place cells, head direction cells, grid cells and boundary cells, each of which has a characteristic firing pattern that encodes spatial parameters relating to the animal's current position and orientation. These properties also include the theta oscillation, which appears to play a functional role in the representation and processing of spatial information. Reviewing recent work, we identify some themes of current research and introduce approaches to computational modelling that have helped to bridge the different levels of description at which these mechanisms have been investigated. These range from the level of molecular biology and genetics to the behaviour and brain activity of entire organisms. We argue that the neuroscience of spatial cognition is emerging as an exceptionally integrative field which provides an ideal test-bed for theories linking neural coding, learning, memory and cognition.

KW - hippocampus

KW - entorhinal cortex

KW - grid cells

KW - place cells

KW - head direction cells

KW - boundary cells

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84897370672&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1098/rstb.2012.0510

DO - 10.1098/rstb.2012.0510

M3 - Article

C2 - 24366125

AN - SCOPUS:84897370672

SN - 1471-2970

VL - 369

SP - 20120510

JO - Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society Of London Series B - Biological Sciences

JF - Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society Of London Series B - Biological Sciences

IS - 1635

M1 - 20120510

ER -