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Connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells

Mammalian grid cells fire when an animal crosses the points of an imaginary hexagonal grid tessellating the environment. We show how animals can navigate by reading out a simple population vector of grid cell activity across multiple spatial scales, even though neural activity is intrinsically stoch...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Stemmler, Martin, Mathis, Alexander, Herz, Andreas V. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4730856/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26824061
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1500816
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author Stemmler, Martin
Mathis, Alexander
Herz, Andreas V. M.
author_facet Stemmler, Martin
Mathis, Alexander
Herz, Andreas V. M.
author_sort Stemmler, Martin
collection PubMed
description Mammalian grid cells fire when an animal crosses the points of an imaginary hexagonal grid tessellating the environment. We show how animals can navigate by reading out a simple population vector of grid cell activity across multiple spatial scales, even though neural activity is intrinsically stochastic. This theory of dead reckoning explains why grid cells are organized into discrete modules within which all cells have the same lattice scale and orientation. The lattice scale changes from module to module and should form a geometric progression with a scale ratio of around 3/2 to minimize the risk of making large-scale errors in spatial localization. Such errors should also occur if intermediate-scale modules are silenced, whereas knocking out the module at the smallest scale will only affect spatial precision. For goal-directed navigation, the allocentric grid cell representation can be readily transformed into the egocentric goal coordinates needed for planning movements. The goal location is set by nonlinear gain fields that act on goal vector cells. This theory predicts neural and behavioral correlates of grid cell readout that transcend the known link between grid cells of the medial entorhinal cortex and place cells of the hippocampus.
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spelling pubmed-47308562016-01-28 Connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells Stemmler, Martin Mathis, Alexander Herz, Andreas V. M. Sci Adv Research Articles Mammalian grid cells fire when an animal crosses the points of an imaginary hexagonal grid tessellating the environment. We show how animals can navigate by reading out a simple population vector of grid cell activity across multiple spatial scales, even though neural activity is intrinsically stochastic. This theory of dead reckoning explains why grid cells are organized into discrete modules within which all cells have the same lattice scale and orientation. The lattice scale changes from module to module and should form a geometric progression with a scale ratio of around 3/2 to minimize the risk of making large-scale errors in spatial localization. Such errors should also occur if intermediate-scale modules are silenced, whereas knocking out the module at the smallest scale will only affect spatial precision. For goal-directed navigation, the allocentric grid cell representation can be readily transformed into the egocentric goal coordinates needed for planning movements. The goal location is set by nonlinear gain fields that act on goal vector cells. This theory predicts neural and behavioral correlates of grid cell readout that transcend the known link between grid cells of the medial entorhinal cortex and place cells of the hippocampus. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2015-12-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4730856/ /pubmed/26824061 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1500816 Text en Copyright © 2015, The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Stemmler, Martin
Mathis, Alexander
Herz, Andreas V. M.
Connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells
title Connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells
title_full Connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells
title_fullStr Connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells
title_full_unstemmed Connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells
title_short Connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells
title_sort connecting multiple spatial scales to decode the population activity of grid cells
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4730856/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26824061
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1500816
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