The human brain uses spatial schemas to represent segmented environments

Peer, Michael; Epstein, Russell A.

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.012

Cited by 24 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 147 publications

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“…There are several recent approaches to studying episodic and spatial processing that we have not explored in this article but that may be promising in delineating these processes. For example, there is increasing interest in both event (Liu et al, 2022; Shin & DuBrow, 2021) and spatial segmentation (Brown et al, 2010; Peer & Epstein, 2021). We segment our continuous conscious experience into discrete chunks, and these event boundaries may be informed by or represented similarly to spatial boundaries.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What about “space” is important for episodic memory?

Fan

Sokolowski

Rosenbaum

et al. 2023

WIRES Cognitive Science

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Early cognitive neuroscientific research revealed that the hippocampus is crucial for spatial navigation in rodents, and for autobiographical episodic memory in humans. Researchers quickly linked these streams to propose that the human hippocampus supports memory through its role in representing space, and research on the link between spatial cognition and episodic memory in humans has proliferated over the past several decades. Different researchers apply the term "spatial" in a variety of contexts, however, and it remains unclear what aspect of space may be critical to memory. Similarly, "episodic" has been defined and tested in different ways. Naturalistic assessment of spatial memory and episodic memory (i.e., episodic autobiographical memory) is required to unify the scale and biological relevance in comparisons of spatial and mnemonic processing. Limitations regarding the translation of rodent to human research, human ontogeny, and inter-individual variability require greater consideration in the interpretation of this literature. In this review, we outline the aspects of space that are (and are not) commonly linked to episodic memory, and then we discuss these dimensions through the lens of individual differences in naturalistic autobiographical memory. Future studies should carefully consider which aspect(s) of space are being linked to memory within the context of naturalistic human cognition.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What about “space” is important for episodic memory?

Fan

Sokolowski

Rosenbaum

et al. 2023

WIRES Cognitive Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thus, our study was intended to assess how recollection of previously encountered objects leads to recovery of associated contextual information (Diana et al, 2007;Eichenbaum et al, 2007). The second key difference was that each spatial context (i.e., each house) consisted of two rooms, whereas previous studies, to our knowledge, examined activity associated with open environments (Deuker et al, 2016;Kyle et al, 2015;Peer and Epstein, 2021;Steemers et al, 2016;Stokes et al, 2015;L. Zheng et al, 2021), single rooms (Guo et al, 2021), or adjoining rooms within a single context (Hassabis et al, 2009;Kim and Maguire, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proximity to Boundaries Reveals Spatial Context Representation in Human Hippocampal CA1

Geva-Sagiv

Dimsdale-Zucker

Williams

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Recollection of real-world events is often accompanied by a sense of being in the place where the event transpired. Convergent evidence suggests the hippocampus plays a key role in supporting episodic memory by associating information with the time and place it was originally encountered. This representation is reinstated during memory retrieval. However, little is known about the roles of different subfields of the human hippocampus in this process. Research in humans and non-human animal models have suggested that spatial environmental boundaries have a powerful influence on spatial and episodic memory, as well as hippocampal representations of contexts and events. Here, we used high-resolution fMRI to investigate how boundaries influence hippocampal activity patterns during the recollection of objects encountered in different spatial contexts. During the encoding phase, participants viewed objects once in a naturalistic virtual reality task, in which they passively explored two rooms in one of two houses. Following the encoding phase, participants were scanned while they recollected items in the absence of any spatial contextual information. Our behavioral results demonstrated that spatial context memory was enhanced for objects encountered near a boundary. Activity patterns in CA1 carried information about the spatial context associated with each of these boundary items. Exploratory analyses revealed that memory for the room in which each object was studied was correlated with the fidelity of retrieved spatial context representations in anterior parahippocampal cortex and subiculum. Our results highlight the privileged role of boundaries in CA1 and suggest more generally a close relationship between memory for spatial contexts and representations in the hippocampus and parahippocampal region.

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“…This also suggests that when trajectories need to be learned, hippocampal spatial responses may be increased. In such segmented environments, it would be interesting to determine how the hippocampal spatial code remaps across subspaces, when one subspace is or is not directly visible from other subspaces [ 103 ].…”

Section: Place Selectivity In An Open Environment In the Monkey Hippo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural Correlates of Spatial Navigation in Primate Hippocampus

2022

Neurosci. Bull.

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The hippocampus has been extensively implicated in spatial navigation in rodents and more recently in bats. Numerous studies have revealed that various kinds of spatial information are encoded across hippocampal regions. In contrast, investigations of spatial behavioral correlates in the primate hippocampus are scarce and have been mostly limited to head-restrained subjects during virtual navigation. However, recent advances made in freely-moving primates suggest marked differences in spatial representations from rodents, albeit some similarities. Here, we review empirical studies examining the neural correlates of spatial navigation in the primate (including human) hippocampus at the levels of local field potentials and single units. The lower frequency theta oscillations are often intermittent. Single neuron responses are highly mixed and task-dependent. We also discuss neuronal selectivity in the eye and head coordinates. Finally, we propose that future studies should focus on investigating both intrinsic and extrinsic population activity and examining spatial coding properties in large-scale hippocampal-neocortical networks across tasks.

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The human brain uses spatial schemas to represent segmented environments

Cited by 24 publications

References 147 publications

What about “space” is important for episodic memory?

What about “space” is important for episodic memory?

Proximity to Boundaries Reveals Spatial Context Representation in Human Hippocampal CA1

Neural Correlates of Spatial Navigation in Primate Hippocampus

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