What Grid Cells Convey About Rat Location

Overview

Journal J Neurosci

Specialty Neurology

Date 2008 Jul 4

PMID 18596161

Citations 91

Authors

Ila R Fiete

Yoram Burak

Ted Brookings

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We characterize the relationship between the simultaneously recorded quantities of rodent grid cell firing and the position of the rat. The formalization reveals various properties of grid cell activity when considered as a neural code for representing and updating estimates of the rat's location. We show that, although the spatially periodic response of grid cells appears wasteful, the code is fully combinatorial in capacity. The resulting range for unambiguous position representation is vastly greater than the approximately 1-10 m periods of individual lattices, allowing for unique high-resolution position specification over the behavioral foraging ranges of rats, with excess capacity that could be used for error correction. Next, we show that the merits of the grid cell code for position representation extend well beyond capacity and include arithmetic properties that facilitate position updating. We conclude by considering the numerous implications, for downstream readouts and experimental tests, of the properties of the grid cell code.

Citing Articles

Robust variability of grid cell properties within individual grid modules enhances encoding of local space.

Redman W, Acosta-Mendoza S, Wei X, Goard M Elife. 2025; 13.

PMID: 39976331 PMC: 11841986. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.100652.

Global modules robustly emerge from local interactions and smooth gradients.

Khona M, Chandra S, Fiete I Nature. 2025; .

PMID: 39972140 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08541-3.

Hexagons all the way down: grid cells as a conformal isometric map of space.

Schoyen V, Beshkov K, Pettersen M, Hermansen E, Holzhausen K, Malthe-Sorenssen A PLoS Comput Biol. 2025; 21(2):e1012804.

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Left-right-alternating theta sweeps in entorhinal-hippocampal maps of space.

Vollan A, Gardner R, Moser M, Moser E Nature. 2025; .

PMID: 39900625 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08527-1.

Episodic and associative memory from spatial scaffolds in the hippocampus.

Chandra S, Sharma S, Chaudhuri R, Fiete I Nature. 2025; 638(8051):739-751.

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