Researchers say the brain appears to be wired to calculate not the shortest path, but the "pointiest" path, facing us toward our destination as much as possible.
The cognitive map allows people to compute on the fly with limited information to solve abstract problems.
Rat study reveals place cells in the hippocampus have the same patterns of activity whether they correctly, or incorrectly recall a memory. However, when the memory is incorrect, the activity begins later and is slower.
Researchers observed hippocampal place cell changes in animal experiments of cue-poor and cue-rich spatial environments. The findings have implications for the treatment of brain disorders and the development of new AI technologies.
Pyramidal cells in the CA2 region of the hippocampus are responsible for storing critical timing information.
The act of remapping an area can be mathematically modeled as probabilistic reasoning in rodents.
Hippocampal neurons that store abstract memories of prior experiences activate when new, but similar events take place.
Study shows how hippocampal cells can represent different hypothetical scenarios consistently and systematically over time. The findings shed new light on how place cells assist in decision making and imagination.
Neural activity in the entorhinal cortex is correlated with place-based memories. The findings shed new light on how the brain processes spatial memory.
The postrhinal cortex of rats contains three types of spatial cells which act together to provide a sense of location and directional orientation.
Using augmented reality, researchers discover how rats recalibrate learned relationships between a landmark, speed, distance and time to create a locational 'map' in the brain.
Researchers propose a new theory of human thinking, suggesting our brain's navigation system is key to thinking. This may explain why our knowledge seems to be organized in spatial fashion.
