Origins of landmark encoding in the brain

Abstract

The ability to perceive one's position and directional heading relative to landmarks is necessary for successful navigation within an environment. Recent studies have shown that the visual system dominantly controls the neural representations of directional heading and location when familiar visual cues are available, and several neural circuits, or streams, have been proposed to be crucial for visual information processing. Here, we summarize the evidence that the dorsal presubiculum (also known as the postsubiculum) is critically important for the direct transfer of visual landmark information to spatial signals within the limbic system.