Bl. Mcnaughton et al., DECIPHERING THE HIPPOCAMPAL POLYGLOT - THE HIPPOCAMPUS AS A PATH INTEGRATION SYSTEM, Journal of Experimental Biology, 199(1), 1996, pp. 173-185
Hippocampal 'place' cells and the head-direction cells of the dorsal p
resubiculum and related neocortical and thalamic areas appear to be pa
rt of a preconfigured network that generates an abstract internal repr
esentation of two-dimensional space whose metric is self-motion. It ap
pears that viewpoint-specific visual information (e.g. landmarks) beco
mes secondarily bound to this structure by associative learning. These
associations between landmarks and the preconfigured path integrator
serve to set the origin for path integration and to correct for cumula
tive error. In the absence of familiar landmarks, or in darkness witho
ut a prior spatial reference, the system appears to adopt an initial r
eference for path integration independently of external cues. A hypoth
esis of how the path integration system may operate at the neuronal le
vel is proposed.