CTN Seminar Matt van der Meer, Dartmouth

Matt van der Meer of Dartmouth University will be giving a CTN Seminar. (E5-2004)

Title: Three lies, and a cognitive process model, about information processing in the rodent hippocampus

Abstract: I will present results from my lab that cast doubt on three commonly held ideas about the rodent hippocampus, and then propose a cognitive process model that assigns synergistic functions to each of the experimentally observed alternatives. First, contrary to the idea that hippocampal replay reflects recent experience and/or upcoming goals, we show “paradoxical replay” of non-chosen options. Second, contrary to the idea that remapping across different environments is random, we observe various kinds of structure across the encoding of different environments. Third, contrary to the idea that the hippocampus faithfully encodes ongoing experience, we synthesize evidence that it actually blends the past, present and future together into subjective belief states. We propose that paradoxical replay protects these subjective belief states from interference, and that representational similarity structure of these belief states underlies behavioral generalization.