Jacob Bellmund

Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | CBS · Psychology

Everyday decisions require us to predict how valuable different choice options will be in the future. Prior studies have identified a cognitive map in the hippocampal-entorhinal system that encodes relationships between states and enables prediction of future states, but does not inherently convey value during prospective decision making. Here, we...

The hippocampal-entorhinal region supports memory for episodic details, such as temporal relations of sequential events, and mnemonic constructions combining experiences for inferential reasoning. However, it is unclear whether hippocampal event memories reflect temporal relations derived from mnemonic constructions, event order, or elapsing time,...

The hippocampal-entorhinal region supports memory for episodic details, such as temporal relations of sequential events, and mnemonic constructions combining experiences for inferential reasoning. However, it is unclear whether hippocampal event representations reflect temporal relations derived from mnemonic constructions, event order, or elapsing...

Advances in virtual reality (VR) technology have greatly benefited spatial navigation research. By presenting space in a controlled manner, changing aspects of the environment one at a time or manipulating the gain from different sensory inputs, the mechanisms underlying spatial behaviour can be investigated. In parallel, a growing body of evidence...

In this issue of Neuron, Park et al. (2020) • Park S.A. • Miller D.S. • Nili H. • Ranganath C. • Boorman E.D. Map making: Constructing, combining, and inferring on abstract cognitive maps. Neuron. 2020; 107 ( this issue) : 1226-1238 • Abstract • Full Text • Full Text PDF • PubMed • Scopus (1) • Google Scholar show that the brain forms unified c...

Advances in virtual reality (VR) technology have greatly benefited spatial navigation research. By presenting space in a controlled manner, changing aspects of the environment one at a time or manipulating the gain from different sensory inputs, the mechanisms underlying behaviour can be investigated. In parallel, a growing body of evidence suggest...

Episodic memories are constructed from sequences of events. When recalling such a memory, we not only recall individual events, but we also retrieve information about how the sequence of events unfolded. Here, we focus on the role of the hippocampal–entorhinal region in processing and remembering sequences of events, which are thought to be stored...

Environmental boundaries anchor cognitive maps that support memory. However, trapezoidal boundary geometry distorts the regular firing patterns of entorhinal grid cells, proposedly providing a metric for cognitive maps. Here we test the impact of trapezoidal boundary geometry on human spatial memory using immersive virtual reality. Consistent with...

Remembering event sequences is central to episodic memory and presumably supported by the hippocampal-entorhinal region. We previously demonstrated that the hippocampus maps spatial and temporal distances between events encountered along a route through a virtual city (Deuker et al., 2016), but the content of entorhinal mnemonic representations rem...

Remembering event sequences is central to episodic memory and presumably supported by the hippocampal-entorhinal region. We previously demonstrated that the hippocampus maps spatial and temporal distances between events encountered along a route through a virtual city (Deuker et al., 2016), but the content of entorhinal mnemonic representations rem...

A framework for cognitive spaces Ever since Tolman's proposal of cognitive maps in the 1940s, the question of how spatial representations support flexible behavior has been a contentious topic. Bellmund et al. review and combine concepts from cognitive science and philosophy with findings from neurophysiology of spatial navigation in rodents to pro...

Environmental boundaries anchor cognitive maps that support memory. However, trapezoidal boundary geometry distorts the regular firing patterns of entorhinal grid cells proposedly providing a metric for cognitive maps. Here, we test the impact of trapezoidal boundary geometry on human spatial memory using immersive virtual reality. Consistent with...

Entorhinal grid cells map the local environment, but their involvement beyond spatial navigation remains elusive. We examined human functional MRI responses during a highly controlled visual tracking task and show that entorhinal cortex exhibited a sixfold rotationally symmetric signal encoding gaze direction. Our results provide evidence for a gri...

The hippocampus has long been implicated in both episodic and spatial memory, however these mnemonic functions have been traditionally investigated in separate research strands. Theoretical accounts and rodent data suggest a common mechanism for spatial and episodic memory in the hippocampus by providing an abstract and flexible representation of t...

Average absolute angular errors.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17089.004

Searchlight results for absolute directional coding analysis.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17089.009

Pattern similarity difference between 0° modulo 60° and 30° modulo 60° condition in left and right posterior medial entorhinal cortex.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17089.013

ELife digest Recordings of brain activity in moving rats have found neurons that fire when the rat is at specific locations. These neurons are known as grid cells because their activity produces a grid-like pattern. A separate group of neurons, called head direction cells, represents the rat’s facing direction. Functional magnetic resonance imaging...