Geometry of abstract learned knowledge in the hippocampus

Nieh, Edward H.; Schottdorf, Manuel; Freeman, Nicolas W.; Low, Ryan; Lewallen, Sam; Koay, Sue Ann; Pinto, Lucas; Gauthier, Jeffrey; Brody, Carlos D.; Tank, David W.

doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03652-7

Cited by 188 publications

(189 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reward-direction cells that have a joint feature of reward state and direction seem to be relevant to the multidimensional features of hippocampal neurons (Nieh et al, 2021). Nieh et al (2021) examined how neurons in the CA1 integrated neural representations of cognitive and physical variables and whether low-dimensional manifolds underlie these representations. They found that the majority of task-related neurons encoded position and evidence jointly in the multidimensional spaces and suggest that the neural encoding of the task variables at the cellular level may have a geometric structure.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hippocampal CA1 Neurons Represent Positive Feedback During the Learning Process of an Associative Memory Task

Takamiya

Shiotani

Ohnuki

et al. 2021

Front. Syst. Neurosci.

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The hippocampus is crucial for forming associations between environmental stimuli. However, it is unclear how neural activities of hippocampal neurons dynamically change during the learning process. To address this question, we developed an associative memory task for rats with auditory stimuli. In this task, the rats were required to associate tone pitches (high and low) and ports (right and left) to obtain a reward. We recorded the firing activity of neurons in rats hippocampal CA1 during the learning process of the task. As a result, many hippocampal CA1 neurons increased their firing rates when the rats received a reward after choosing either the left or right port. We referred to these cells as “reward-direction cells.” Furthermore, the proportion of the reward-direction cells increased in the middle-stage of learning but decreased after the completion of learning. This result suggests that the activity of reward-direction cells might serve as “positive feedback” signal that facilitates the formation of associations between tone pitches and port choice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hippocampal CA1 Neurons Represent Positive Feedback During the Learning Process of an Associative Memory Task

Takamiya

Shiotani

Ohnuki

et al. 2021

Front. Syst. Neurosci.

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“…O’Keefe and Nadel suggested that cognitive maps may be represented in the hippocampus (HIP), encoded by cells that track the geometry of physical space (e.g., ‘place cells’ that correlate with an animal’s current location) 6 . Subsequently, an increasing amount of evidence showed that the HIP plays a significant role in spatial representation and navigation 7 – 10 . More recent fMRI studies in humans have found that the hippocampal formation also supports navigation in non-physical spaces, such as perceptual, conceptual and even social spaces 3 , 11 – 19 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A specific brain network for a social map in the human brain

Zhang

Chen

Schafer

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Individuals use social information to guide social interactions and to update relationships along multiple social dimensions. However, it is unclear what neural basis underlies this process of abstract “social navigation”. In the current study, we recruited twenty-nine participants who performed a choose-your-own-adventure game in which they interacted with fictional characters during fMRI scanning. Using a whole-brain GLM approach, we found that vectors encoding two-dimensional information about the relationships predicted BOLD responses in the hippocampus and the precuneus, replicating previous work. We also explored whether these geometric representations were related to key brain regions previously identified in physical and abstract spatial navigation studies, but we did not find involvement of the entorhinal cortex, parahippocampal gyrus or the retrosplenial cortex. Finally, we used psychophysiological interaction analysis and identified a network of regions that correlated during participants’ decisions, including the left posterior hippocampus, precuneus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and the insula. Our findings suggest a brain network for social navigation in multiple abstract, social dimensions that includes the hippocampus, precuneus, dlPFC, and insula.

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“…Considerations of how the transition from an aquatic to a terrestrial environment might alter olfactory processing have been offered that reflect some of these ideas [206]. A more recent claim is that the hippocampus' computational role is the creation of taskspecific low-dimensional manifolds that contain a geometric representation of learned knowledge through sequences of hippocampal cell activations [207].…”

Section: Egocentric Versus Allocentric Mapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The neuroecology of the water-to-land transition and the evolution of the vertebrate brain

MacIver

Finlay

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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The water-to-land transition in vertebrate evolution offers an unusual opportunity to consider computational affordances of a new ecology for the brain. All sensory modalities are changed, particularly a greatly enlarged visual sensorium owing to air versus water as a medium, and expanded by mobile eyes and neck. The multiplication of limbs, as evolved to exploit aspects of life on land, is a comparable computational challenge. As the total mass of living organisms on land is a hundredfold larger than the mass underwater, computational improvements promise great rewards. In water, the midbrain tectum coordinates approach/avoid decisions, contextualized by water flow and by the animal’s body state and learning. On land, the relative motions of sensory surfaces and effectors must be resolved, adding on computational architectures from the dorsal pallium, such as the parietal cortex. For the large-brained and long-living denizens of land, making the right decision when the wrong one means death may be the basis of planning, which allows animals to learn from hypothetical experience before enactment. Integration of value-weighted, memorized panoramas in basal ganglia/frontal cortex circuitry, with allocentric cognitive maps of the hippocampus and its associated cortices becomes a cognitive habit-to-plan transition as substantial as the change in ecology. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Systems neuroscience through the lens of evolutionary theory’.

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Geometry of abstract learned knowledge in the hippocampus

Cited by 188 publications

References 43 publications

Hippocampal CA1 Neurons Represent Positive Feedback During the Learning Process of an Associative Memory Task

Hippocampal CA1 Neurons Represent Positive Feedback During the Learning Process of an Associative Memory Task

A specific brain network for a social map in the human brain

The neuroecology of the water-to-land transition and the evolution of the vertebrate brain

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