scholarly journals Towards a Predictive Bio-Inspired Navigation Model

Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Simon Gay ◽  
Kévin Le Le Run ◽  
Edwige Pissaloux ◽  
Katerine Romeo ◽  
Christèle Lecomte
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Grid Cell ◽  
Visual Navigation ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Visually Impaired People ◽  
Proposed Model

This paper presents a novel bio-inspired predictive model of visual navigation inspired by mammalian navigation. This model takes inspiration from specific types of neurons observed in the brain, namely place cells, grid cells and head direction cells. In the proposed model, place cells are structures that store and connect local representations of the explored environment, grid and head direction cells make predictions based on these representations to define the position of the agent in a place cell’s reference frame. This specific use of navigation cells has three advantages: First, the environment representations are stored by place cells and require only a few spatialized descriptors or elements, making this model suitable for the integration of large-scale environments (indoor and outdoor). Second, the grid cell modules act as an efficient visual and absolute odometry system. Finally, the model provides sequential spatial tracking that can integrate and track an agent in redundant environments or environments with very few or no distinctive cues, while being very robust to environmental changes. This paper focuses on the architecture formalization and the main elements and properties of this model. The model has been successfully validated on basic functions: mapping, guidance, homing, and finding shortcuts. The precision of the estimated position of the agent and the robustness to environmental changes during navigation were shown to be satisfactory. The proposed predictive model is intended to be used on autonomous platforms, but also to assist visually impaired people in their mobility.

Hippocampal Place-Cell Firing During Movement in Three-Dimensional Space

2001 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Knierim ◽  
Bruce L. McNaughton
Keyword(s):  
Hippocampal Neurons ◽  
Horizontal Plane ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Place Cell ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Limbic Cortex ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Recording Apparatus ◽  
Place Fields

“Place” cells of the rat hippocampus are coupled to “head direction” cells of the thalamus and limbic cortex. Head direction cells are sensitive to head direction in the horizontal plane only, which leads to the question of whether place cells similarly encode locations in the horizontal plane only, ignoring the z axis, or whether they encode locations in three dimensions. This question was addressed by recording from ensembles of CA1 pyramidal cells while rats traversed a rectangular track that could be tilted and rotated to different three-dimensional orientations. Cells were analyzed to determine whether their firing was bound to the external, three-dimensional cues of the environment, to the two-dimensional rectangular surface, or to some combination of these cues. Tilting the track 45° generally provoked a partial remapping of the rectangular surface in that some cells maintained their place fields, whereas other cells either gained new place fields, lost existing fields, or changed their firing locations arbitrarily. When the tilted track was rotated relative to the distal landmarks, most place fields remapped, but a number of cells maintained the same place field relative to the x-y coordinate frame of the laboratory, ignoring the z axis. No more cells were bound to the local reference frame of the recording apparatus than would be predicted by chance. The partial remapping demonstrated that the place cell system was sensitive to the three-dimensional manipulations of the recording apparatus. Nonetheless the results were not consistent with an explicit three-dimensional tuning of individual hippocampal neurons nor were they consistent with a model in which different sets of cells are tightly coupled to different sets of environmental cues. The results are most consistent with the statement that hippocampal neurons can change their “tuning functions” in arbitrary ways when features of the sensory input or behavioral context are altered. Understanding the rules that govern the remapping phenomenon holds promise for deciphering the neural circuitry underlying hippocampal function.

scholarly journals Functional connectivity of the entorhinal–hippocampal space circuit

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1635) ◽  
pp. 20120516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheng-Jia Zhang ◽  
Jing Ye ◽  
Jonathan J. Couey ◽  
Menno Witter ◽  
Edvard I. Moser ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Entorhinal Cortex ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Projection Neurons ◽  
Border Cells ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Grid Cells ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Cell Groups

The mammalian space circuit is known to contain several functionally specialized cell types, such as place cells in the hippocampus and grid cells, head-direction cells and border cells in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC). The interaction between the entorhinal and hippocampal spatial representations is poorly understood, however. We have developed an optogenetic strategy to identify functionally defined cell types in the MEC that project directly to the hippocampus. By expressing channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) selectively in the hippocampus-projecting subset of entorhinal projection neurons, we were able to use light-evoked discharge as an instrument to determine whether specific entorhinal cell groups—such as grid cells, border cells and head-direction cells—have direct hippocampal projections. Photoinduced firing was observed at fixed minimal latencies in all functional cell categories, with grid cells as the most abundant hippocampus-projecting spatial cell type. We discuss how photoexcitation experiments can be used to distinguish the subset of hippocampus-projecting entorhinal neurons from neurons that are activated indirectly through the network. The functional breadth of entorhinal input implied by this analysis opens up the potential for rich dynamic interactions between place cells in the hippocampus and different functional cell types in the entorhinal cortex (EC).

Bio-Inspired Robotics: A Spatial Cognition Model integrating Place Cells, Grid Cells and Head Direction Cells

2018 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Tejera ◽  
Martin Llofriu ◽  
Alejandra Barrera ◽  
Alfredo Weitzenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Cognition ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Grid Cells ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Cognition Model

scholarly journals Home, head direction stability, and grid cell distortion

2020 ◽  
Vol 123 (4) ◽  
pp. 1392-1406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Ignacio Sanguinetti-Scheck ◽  
Michael Brecht
Keyword(s):  
Entorhinal Cortex ◽  
Home Cage ◽  
Cell Activity ◽  
Grid Cell ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Grid Cells ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Medial Entorhinal Cortex ◽  
Abstract Approach ◽  
Globally Stable

The home is a unique location in the life of humans and animals. In rats, home presents itself as a multicompartmental space that involves integrating navigation through subspaces. Here we embedded the laboratory rat’s home cage in the arena, while recording neurons in the animal’s parasubiculum and medial entorhinal cortex, two brain areas encoding the animal’s location and head direction. We found that head direction signals were unaffected by home cage presence or translocation. Head direction cells remain globally stable and have similar properties inside and outside the embedded home. We did not observe egocentric bearing encoding of the home cage. However, grid cells were distorted in the presence of the home cage. While they did not globally remap, single firing fields were translocated toward the home. These effects appeared to be geometrical in nature rather than a home-specific distortion and were not dependent on explicit behavioral use of the home cage during a hoarding task. Our work suggests that medial entorhinal cortex and parasubiculum do not remap after embedding the home, but local changes in grid cell activity overrepresent the embedded space location and might contribute to navigation in complex environments. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Neural findings in the field of spatial navigation come mostly from an abstract approach that separates the animal from even a minimally biological context. In this article we embed the home cage of the rat in the environment to address some of the complexities of natural navigation. We find no explicit home cage representation. While both head direction cells and grid cells remain globally stable, we find that embedded spaces locally distort grid cells.

scholarly journals A spatial map in the somatosensory cortex

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyang Long ◽  
Sheng-Jia Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Spatial Representation ◽  
Hippocampal Formation ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Border Cells ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
Boundary Vector ◽  
The Brain

AbstractSpatially selective firing in the forms of place cells, grid cells, boundary vector/border cells and head direction cells are the basic building blocks of a canonical spatial navigation system centered on the hippocampal-entorhinal complex. While head direction cells can be found throughout the brain, spatial tuning outside the hippocampal formation are often non-specific or conjunctive to other representations such as a reward. Although the precise mechanism of spatially selective activities is not understood, various studies show sensory inputs (particularly vision) heavily modulate spatial representation in the hippocampal-entorhinal circuit. To better understand the contribution from other sensory inputs in shaping spatial representation in the brain, we recorded from the primary somatosensory cortex in foraging rats. To our surprise, we were able to identify the full complement of spatial activity patterns reported in the hippocampal-entorhinal network, namely, place cells, head direction cells, boundary vector/border cells, grid cells and conjunctive cells. These newly identified somatosensory spatial cell types form a spatial map outside the hippocampal formation and support the hypothesis that location information is necessary for body representation in the somatosensory cortex, and may be analogous to spatially tuned representations in the motor cortex relating to the movement of body parts. Our findings are transformative in our understanding of how spatial information is used and utilized in the brain, as well as functional operations of the somatosensory cortex in the context of rehabilitation with brain-machine interfaces.

scholarly journals A spatial code in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Hok ◽  
Pierre-Yves Jacob ◽  
Pierrick Bordiga ◽  
Bruno Truchet ◽  
Bruno Poucet ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Memory ◽  
Spatial Cognition ◽  
Lateral Geniculate Nucleus ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Dorsal Lateral Geniculate Nucleus ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Spatial Selectivity ◽  
Lateral Geniculate ◽  
Dorsal Lateral Geniculate

AbstractSince their discovery in the early ‘70s1, hippocampal place cells have been studied in numerous animal and human spatial memory paradigms2–4. These pyramidal cells, along with other spatially tuned types of neurons (e.g. grid cells, head direction cells), are thought to provide the mammalian brain a unique spatial signature characterizing a specific environment, and thereby a memory trace of the subject’s place5. While grid and head direction cells are found in various brain regions, only few hippocampal-related structures showing ‘place cell’-like neurons have been identified6,7, thus reinforcing the central role of the hippocampus in spatial memory. Concurrently, it is increasingly suggested that visual areas play an important role in spatial cognition as recent studies showed a clear spatial selectivity of visual cortical (V1) neurons in freely moving rodents8–10. We therefore thought to investigate, in the rat, such spatial correlates in a thalamic structure located one synapse upstream of V1, the dorsal Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (dLGN), and discovered that a substantial proportion (ca. 30%) of neurons exhibits spatio-selective activity. We found that dLGN place cells maintain their spatial selectivity in the absence of visual inputs, presumably relying on odor and locomotor inputs. We also found that dLGN place cells maintain their place selectivity across sessions in a familiar environment and that contextual modifications yield separated representations. Our results show that dLGN place cells are likely to participate in spatial cognition processes, creating as early as the thalamic stage a comprehensive representation of one given environment.

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