Cargando…
Navigation task and action space drive the emergence of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations
In general, strategies for spatial navigation could employ one of two spatial reference frames: egocentric or allocentric. Notwithstanding intuitive explanations, it remains unclear however under what circumstances one strategy is chosen over another, and how neural representations should be related...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2022
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9648855/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36315587 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010320 |
_version_ | 1784827670724345856 |
---|---|
author | Vijayabaskaran, Sandhiya Cheng, Sen |
author_facet | Vijayabaskaran, Sandhiya Cheng, Sen |
author_sort | Vijayabaskaran, Sandhiya |
collection | PubMed |
description | In general, strategies for spatial navigation could employ one of two spatial reference frames: egocentric or allocentric. Notwithstanding intuitive explanations, it remains unclear however under what circumstances one strategy is chosen over another, and how neural representations should be related to the chosen strategy. Here, we first use a deep reinforcement learning model to investigate whether a particular type of navigation strategy arises spontaneously during spatial learning without imposing a bias onto the model. We then examine the spatial representations that emerge in the network to support navigation. To this end, we study two tasks that are ethologically valid for mammals—guidance, where the agent has to navigate to a goal location fixed in allocentric space, and aiming, where the agent navigates to a visible cue. We find that when both navigation strategies are available to the agent, the solutions it develops for guidance and aiming are heavily biased towards the allocentric or the egocentric strategy, respectively, as one might expect. Nevertheless, the agent can learn both tasks using either type of strategy. Furthermore, we find that place-cell-like allocentric representations emerge preferentially in guidance when using an allocentric strategy, whereas egocentric vector representations emerge when using an egocentric strategy in aiming. We thus find that alongside the type of navigational strategy, the nature of the task plays a pivotal role in the type of spatial representations that emerge. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9648855 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-96488552022-11-15 Navigation task and action space drive the emergence of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations Vijayabaskaran, Sandhiya Cheng, Sen PLoS Comput Biol Research Article In general, strategies for spatial navigation could employ one of two spatial reference frames: egocentric or allocentric. Notwithstanding intuitive explanations, it remains unclear however under what circumstances one strategy is chosen over another, and how neural representations should be related to the chosen strategy. Here, we first use a deep reinforcement learning model to investigate whether a particular type of navigation strategy arises spontaneously during spatial learning without imposing a bias onto the model. We then examine the spatial representations that emerge in the network to support navigation. To this end, we study two tasks that are ethologically valid for mammals—guidance, where the agent has to navigate to a goal location fixed in allocentric space, and aiming, where the agent navigates to a visible cue. We find that when both navigation strategies are available to the agent, the solutions it develops for guidance and aiming are heavily biased towards the allocentric or the egocentric strategy, respectively, as one might expect. Nevertheless, the agent can learn both tasks using either type of strategy. Furthermore, we find that place-cell-like allocentric representations emerge preferentially in guidance when using an allocentric strategy, whereas egocentric vector representations emerge when using an egocentric strategy in aiming. We thus find that alongside the type of navigational strategy, the nature of the task plays a pivotal role in the type of spatial representations that emerge. Public Library of Science 2022-10-31 /pmc/articles/PMC9648855/ /pubmed/36315587 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010320 Text en © 2022 Vijayabaskaran, Cheng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Vijayabaskaran, Sandhiya Cheng, Sen Navigation task and action space drive the emergence of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations |
title | Navigation task and action space drive the emergence of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations |
title_full | Navigation task and action space drive the emergence of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations |
title_fullStr | Navigation task and action space drive the emergence of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations |
title_full_unstemmed | Navigation task and action space drive the emergence of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations |
title_short | Navigation task and action space drive the emergence of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations |
title_sort | navigation task and action space drive the emergence of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9648855/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36315587 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010320 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT vijayabaskaransandhiya navigationtaskandactionspacedrivetheemergenceofegocentricandallocentricspatialrepresentations AT chengsen navigationtaskandactionspacedrivetheemergenceofegocentricandallocentricspatialrepresentations |