MMW 11 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Head Direction Cells, Spatial Navigation, Entorhinal Cortex
31 Oct 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Encoding of spatial relationships to memory, identifying specific paths for specific places, identifying places within a path to other places (ex: how far away from the tree is the building), how do we describe the place. Good reference for spatial schema, providing an obvious reference to direction. Spatial navigation difficulty - approximately 9% of the population - tuning is present during track running but largely absent during free foraging. We use rats because rats have a very strong ability to navigate; it"s also because human and rats shared similarity in features of navigational strategies across mammalian species. We also shared similar detailed structure across mammalian species. It is useful for finding routes in an unfamiliar place, following directions to another person"s houses. It is crucial for adapting to new environments and getting from one point to another. Without is, people will walk around endless circles.
