Spatial Cognition in Rodents

Wayfinding, like other related spatial cognitive abilities, is a core function of all mobile animals. The past 50 years have a seen a plethora of research devoted to elucidating the neural basis of this function. This research has led to the identification of neuronal cell types—many of which can be found within the hippocampal area and afferent brain regions—that encode different spatial variables and together are thought to provide animals with a so-called “cognitive map.” Moreover, seminal research carried out over the past decade has identified a neural activity event—known as “replay”—that is thought to consolidate newly formed cognitive maps, so to commit them to long-term storage and support planning of goal-directed navigational trajectories in familiar, and perhaps novel, environments. Finally, this hippocampal spatial coding scheme has in recent years been postulated to extend to nonspatial domains, including episodic memory, suggesting it may play a general role in knowledge creation.