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How the Brain's Navigation System Shapes Our Visual Experience
Matthias Nau1, Joshua B Julian1, Christian F Doeller2
1Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Neural Computation, The Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits, NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; These authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract:
We explore the environment not only by navigating, but also by viewing our surroundings with our eyes. Here we review growing evidence that the mammalian hippocampal formation, extensively studied in the context of navigation and memory, mediates a representation of visual space that is stably anchored to the external world. This visual representation puts the hippocampal formation in a central position to guide viewing behavior and to modulate visual processing beyond the medial temporal lobe (MTL). We suggest that vision and navigation share several key computational challenges that are solved by overlapping and potentially common neural systems, making vision an optimal domain to explore whether and how the MTL supports cognitive operations beyond navigation.