Event:

Navigation, both learned and natural, requires knowing where you are and the ability to decide, based on available evidence, where to go from there. Here, I will describe recent work, conducted in both terrestrial and flying species, addressing the neural mechanisms underlying these core functions.
I will begin with describing recent findings on the spatial representation system in the hippocampal formation of a novel mammalian animal model – the bat. Using methods for recordings of single neurons from the brains of freely behaving and flying bats we could address, for the first time, the mechanisms underlying the encoding of multi-dimensional (2D and 3D) space by hippocampal cells. I will provide evidence suggesting that the mammalian hippocampal formation represents the complete 3D environment using a uniform and nearly isotropic rate-coding mechanism.
I will then switch, temporarily, brain areas, model organisms and from natural to learned behaviors, to address the question of how noisy sensory evidence is accumulated by neural circuits during perceptual decision-making. Using rats performing a learned accumulation of evidence decision-making task and a wide range of approaches, including behavioral, anatomical, pharmacological, optogenetic, electrophysiological and computational modeling, I will show that the anterior-dorsal striatum contains the core neural signatures of evidence accumulation and is the first to have been shown necessary throughout the accumulation process. This combination has never been reported before for any brain area nor species and suggests that this striatal region may be the first known node of the evidence accumulation circuit.
Lastly, if time permits, I will return to the bat and describe some of my future plans on using the bat to address these, as well similar, research topics.
On all of these, I would greatly appreciate your comments and insight.