Disentangling Fact from Grid Cell Fiction in Trained Deep Path Integrators

Work on deep learning-based models of grid cells suggests that grid cells generically and robustly arise from optimizing networks to path integrate, i.e., track one's spatial position by integrating self-velocity signals. In previous work [27], we challenged this path integration hypothesis by showing that deep neural networks trained to path integrate almost always do so, but almost never learn grid-like tuning unless separately inserted by researchers via mechanisms unrelated to path integration. In this work, we restate the key evidence substantiating these insights, then address a response to [27] by authors of one of the path integration hypothesis papers [32]. First, we show that the response misinterprets our work, indirectly confirming our points. Second, we evaluate the response's preferred "unified theory for the origin of grid cells" in trained deep path integrators [31, 33, 34] and show that it is at best "occasionally suggestive," not exact or comprehensive. We finish by considering why assessing model quality through prediction of biological neural activity by regression of activity in deep networks [23] can lead to the wrong conclusions.