Place Cells, Grid Cells, Attractors, and Remapping

Place and grid cells are thought to use a mixture of external sensory information and internal attractor dynamics to organize their activity. Attractor dynamics may explain both why neurons react coherently following sufficiently large changes to the environment (discrete attractors) and how firing...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kathryn J. Jeffery
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2011-01-01
Series:Neural Plasticity
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/182602
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832567020405653504
author Kathryn J. Jeffery
author_facet Kathryn J. Jeffery
author_sort Kathryn J. Jeffery
collection DOAJ
description Place and grid cells are thought to use a mixture of external sensory information and internal attractor dynamics to organize their activity. Attractor dynamics may explain both why neurons react coherently following sufficiently large changes to the environment (discrete attractors) and how firing patterns move smoothly from one representation to the next as an animal moves through space (continuous attractors). However, some features of place cell behavior, such as the sometimes independent responsiveness of place cells to environmental change (called “remapping”), seem hard to reconcile with attractor dynamics. This paper suggests that the explanation may be found in an anatomical separation of the two attractor systems coupled with a dynamic contextual modulation of the connection matrix between the two systems, with new learning being back-propagated into the matrix. Such a scheme could explain how place cells sometimes behave coherently and sometimes independently.
format Article
id doaj-art-181b09712513446dac81bcf0d95ea7ef
institution Kabale University
issn 2090-5904
1687-5443
language English
publishDate 2011-01-01
publisher Wiley
record_format Article
series Neural Plasticity
spelling doaj-art-181b09712513446dac81bcf0d95ea7ef2025-02-03T01:02:28ZengWileyNeural Plasticity2090-59041687-54432011-01-01201110.1155/2011/182602182602Place Cells, Grid Cells, Attractors, and RemappingKathryn J. Jeffery0Department of Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP, UKPlace and grid cells are thought to use a mixture of external sensory information and internal attractor dynamics to organize their activity. Attractor dynamics may explain both why neurons react coherently following sufficiently large changes to the environment (discrete attractors) and how firing patterns move smoothly from one representation to the next as an animal moves through space (continuous attractors). However, some features of place cell behavior, such as the sometimes independent responsiveness of place cells to environmental change (called “remapping”), seem hard to reconcile with attractor dynamics. This paper suggests that the explanation may be found in an anatomical separation of the two attractor systems coupled with a dynamic contextual modulation of the connection matrix between the two systems, with new learning being back-propagated into the matrix. Such a scheme could explain how place cells sometimes behave coherently and sometimes independently.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/182602
spellingShingle Kathryn J. Jeffery
Place Cells, Grid Cells, Attractors, and Remapping
Neural Plasticity
title Place Cells, Grid Cells, Attractors, and Remapping
title_full Place Cells, Grid Cells, Attractors, and Remapping
title_fullStr Place Cells, Grid Cells, Attractors, and Remapping
title_full_unstemmed Place Cells, Grid Cells, Attractors, and Remapping
title_short Place Cells, Grid Cells, Attractors, and Remapping
title_sort place cells grid cells attractors and remapping
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/182602
work_keys_str_mv AT kathrynjjeffery placecellsgridcellsattractorsandremapping