Decoding the population activity of grid cells - Andreas Herz

Mammalian grid cells discharge when an animal crosses the points of an imaginary hexagonal grid tessellating the environment. I will show how animals can navigate by reading out a population vector of such activity patterns across multiple spatial scales. The theory explains key experimental results about grid cells, makes testable predictions for future physiological and behavioural experiments, and provides a mathematical foundation for the concept of a "neural metric" for space. For goal-directed navigation, the proposed allocentric grid cell representation can be readily transformed into the egocentric goal coordinates needed for planning movements. Joint work with Martin Stemmler and Alexander Mathis. http://advances.sciencemag.org/conten... Part of a symposium to celebrate the work of Professor Sir David MacKay FRS. The symposium was held over the period 14-15 March 2016. https://mlg.eng.cam.ac.uk/djcms2016/