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Updated: Mar 24, 2026

Modeling the Functional Network for Spatial Navigation in the Human Brain
Published on: October 13, 2023
Framing the grid: effect of boundaries on grid cells and navigation
Julija Krupic1, Marius Bauza1, Stephen Burton1
1Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
Abstract:
Cells in the mammalian hippocampal formation subserve neuronal representations of environmental location and support navigation in familiar environments. Grid cells constitute one of the main cell types in the hippocampal formation and are widely believed to represent a universal metric of space independent of external stimuli. Recent evidence showing that grid symmetry is distorted in non-symmetrical environments suggests that a re-examination of this hypothesis is warranted. In this review we will discuss behavioural and physiological evidence for how environmental shape and in particular enclosure boundaries influence grid cell firing properties. We propose that grid cells encode the geometric layout of enclosures.
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