Role of the hippocampus in spatial memory and navigation

Role in spatial memory and navigation
Some evidence implicates the hippocampus in storing and processing spatial information. Studies in rats have shown that neurons in the hippocampus have spatial firing fields. These cells are called place cells. Some cells fire when the animal finds itself in a particular location, regardless of direction of travel, while most are at least partially sensitive to head direction and direction of travel. In rats, some cells, termed context-dependent cells, may alter their firing depending on the animal's past (retrospective) or expected future (prospective). Different cells fire at different locations, so that, by looking at the firing of the cells alone, it becomes possible to tell where the animal is. Place cells have now been seen in humans involved in finding their way around in a virtual reality town. The findings resulted from research with individuals that had electrodes implanted in their brains as a diagnostic part of surgical treatment for serious epilepsy.

The discovery of place cells led to the idea that the hippocampus might act as a cognitive map — a neural representation of the layout of the environment. Recent evidence has cast doubt on this perspective, indicating that the hippocampus might be crucial for more fundamental processes within navigation. Regardless, studies with animals have shown that an intact hippocampus is required for simple spatial memory tasks (for instance, finding the way back to a hidden goal).

Without a fully-functional hippocampus, humans may not successfully remember where they have been and how to get where they are going. Researchers believe that the hippocampus plays a particularly important role in finding shortcuts and new routes between familiar places. Some people exhibit more skill at this sort of navigation than do others, and brain imaging shows that these individuals have more active hippocampi when navigating.

London's taxi drivers must learn a large number of places — and know the most direct routes between them (they have to pass a strict test, The Knowledge, before being licensed to drive the famous black cabs). A study at University College London by Maguire et (2000) showed that part of the hippocampus is larger in taxi drivers than in the general public, and that more experienced drivers have bigger hippocampi. Whether having a bigger hippocampus helps an individual to become a cab driver or finding shortcuts for a living makes an individual's hippocampus grow is yet to be elucidated. However, in that study Maguire et al. examined the correlation between size of the grey matter and length of time that had been spent as a taxi driver, and found that the longer an individual had spent as a taxi driver, the larger the volume of the right hippocampus. This finding suggested to the authors that increases in size with use over time.

A study on rats at Indiana University suggested that the sexual dimorphism in the hippocampus morphology is tied to a sexual dimorphism in repeated maze performance. Males seem to be better at contexualizing their whereabouts because they have more hippocampus to work with.

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