Speaker: Sujay Neupane

Title: Vector production via mental navigation in primate entorhinal cortex

Abstract: Flexible cognitive behavior is thought to rely on latent structure abstracted from sensory experience.  To test how such cognitive maps guide cognitive behavior, we developed a mental navigation task in which monkeys memorize a sequence of landmarks and ‘mentally’ travel between a pair of cued locations to report a correct vector with joystick deflection. We found that (1) animals generalized their performance to unseen landmark pairs, (2) neurons in the entorhinal cortex (EC) exhibited a periodicity that matched the inter-landmark interval, and (3) these neurons showed a signature of continuous attractor dynamics, a known feature of the canonical grid cells in rodents. These findings suggest that the phenomenon of periodic neurons in EC may support an internal cognitive process of mental simulation.

I will end my talk with findings from research conducted in a recently established vision neuroscience science lab in Kathmandu, Nepal - a case study of vision restoration in an adult patient with a visual cortical lesion acquired at birth. This work is motivated by an effort to develop science infrastructure in Nepal and increase diversity and inclusion in science research.

Zoom link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/8796050369