How the Brain's Navigation System Shapes Our Visual Experience

Matthias Nau; Joshua B Julian; Christian F Doeller

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2018.06.008

How the Brain's Navigation System Shapes Our Visual Experience

Trends Cogn Sci. 2018 Sep;22(9):810-825. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2018.06.008. Epub 2018 Jul 18.

Authors

Matthias Nau¹, Joshua B Julian², Christian F Doeller³

Affiliations

¹ Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Neural Computation, The Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits, NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; These authors contributed equally to this work.
² Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Neural Computation, The Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits, NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; These authors contributed equally to this work. Electronic address: joshua.b.julian@gmail.com.
³ Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Neural Computation, The Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits, NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; St. Olavs Hospital, Trondheim University Hospital, Trondheim, Norway; Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: christian.doeller@ntnu.no.

PMID: 30031670
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2018.06.008

Abstract

We explore the environment not only by navigating, but also by viewing our surroundings with our eyes. Here we review growing evidence that the mammalian hippocampal formation, extensively studied in the context of navigation and memory, mediates a representation of visual space that is stably anchored to the external world. This visual representation puts the hippocampal formation in a central position to guide viewing behavior and to modulate visual processing beyond the medial temporal lobe (MTL). We suggest that vision and navigation share several key computational challenges that are solved by overlapping and potentially common neural systems, making vision an optimal domain to explore whether and how the MTL supports cognitive operations beyond navigation.

Keywords: grid cells; hippocampus; memory; place cells; reference frame; visual constancy.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Animals
Brain / physiology*
Humans
Spatial Navigation / physiology*
Visual Perception / physiology*