Learning Navigational Maps Through Potentiation and Modulation of Hippocampal Place Cells

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Abstract
We analyze a model of navigational map formation based oncorrelation-based, temporally asymmetric potentiation anddepression of synapses between hippocampal place cells. We showthat synaptic modification during random exploration of anenvironment shifts the location encoded by place cell activityin such a way that it indicates the direction from any locationto a fixed target avoiding walls and other obstacles. Multiplemaps to different targets can be simultaneously stored if weintroduce target-dependent modulation of place cell activity.Once maps to a number of target locations in a given environmenthave been stored, novel maps to previously unknown targetlocations are automatically constructed by interpolation betweenexisting maps.