We test the overarching model that-akin to representing places and paths in a spatial map-similar coding principles are involved in the formation of such cognitive spaces. Depending on the two features, racing cars, for instance, would occupy a region characterized by high power and low weight, whereas campers by low power and high weight. For illustration, consider the simple example of describing cars, which you might do along two dimensions, their engine power and their weight. Specifically, we propose that the brain represents experience in so-called ‘cognitive spaces’. Our framework is concerned with the key idea that this navigation system in the brain-potentially as a result of evolution-provides a fundamental neural metric for human cognition. Thereby they provide an internal spatial map, the brain’s SatNav, the most intriguing coding scheme in the brain outside the sensory system. So-called hippocampal place cells, and grid cells in the nearby located entorhinal cortex, signal-in concert with other spatially tuned cells-position, direction, distance and speed. This is based on one of the most fascinating discoveries in neuroscience, the Nobel Prize-awarded identification of spatially responsive cells in the rodent brain, in a region called the hippocampal formation.
#Human brain mapping login code#
In our long-term aim to tackle this question, we use two model systems: human memory and the neural population code for space, representing the summed activity of neurons while processing an individual’s position in its environment. The fundamental question in cognitive neuroscience-what are the key coding principles of the brain enabling human thinking-still remains largely unanswered. Our overarching goal is to crack the cognitive code.