Human spatial representation: what we cannot learn from the studies of rodent navigation

Zhao, Mintao (2018) Human spatial representation: what we cannot learn from the studies of rodent navigation. Journal of Neurophysiology, 120 (5). pp. 2453-2465. ISSN 0022-3077

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Abstract

Studies of human and rodent navigation often reveal a remarkable cross-species similarity between the cognitive and neural mechanisms of navigation. Such cross-species resemblance often overshadows some critical differences between how humans and nonhuman animals navigate. In this review, I first argued that a navigation system requires both a storage system (i.e., representing spatial information) and a positioning system (i.e., sensing spatial information) to operate. I then argued that the way humans represent spatial information is different from that inferred from the cellular activity observed during rodent navigation. Such difference spans the whole hierarchy of spatial representation, from representing the structure of environment to the representation of sub-regions of an environment, routes and paths, and the distance and direction relative to a goal location. These cross-species inconsistencies suggested that what we learned from rodent navigation does not always transferable to human navigation. Finally, I argue for closing the loop for the dominant, unidirectional animal-to-human approach in navigation research, so that insights from behavioral studies of human navigation may also flow back to shed light on the cellular mechanisms of navigation for both humans and other mammals (i.e., a human-to-animal approach).

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	navigation,spatial representation,path integration,grid cell,place cell
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Developmental Science Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Cognition, Action and Perception
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	16 Aug 2018 15:32
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2022 04:04
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/68076
DOI:	10.1152/jn.00781.2017

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