Spatial Representations of Depth: Do Cognitive Maps Facilitate Depth Perception?

自从发现位置细胞和网格细胞以来，海马体和内嗅皮层已经成为认知地图的中心，认知地图是动物局部环境的神经表征。后来发现的编码头部方向、速度、方向、显著标志和环境边界的细胞，都进一步促进了我们对认知地图及其在大脑中的排列的更复杂的理解，尽管有这些发现，大脑如何接收以他中心为中心的感觉输入，并将其转化为影响感知和行为的可解释的神经信号，仍然知之甚少。目前的啮齿动物行为研究主要涉及使用一个空的外壳，很少包括当地的地标必不可少的导航是丰富的野生动物。最近的研究表明，局部环境几何形状的扭曲会损害大鼠的导航，并产生相应的网格细胞场的扭曲，了解环境，身体感觉，本博士项目旨在联合收割机将啮齿动物的电生理学和人类的心理物理学结合起来，探讨空间认知和视觉感知之间的关系。通过研究感知如何受到不断变化的环境线索的影响。通过在动物行为测试期间使用海马和内侧内嗅皮层（MEC）中细胞的体内电生理记录，将研究环境扭曲和改变局部地标对空间推理能力的影响。此外，转基因动物系将用于探索神经发生和特定结构参与的认知地图在神经编码的环境，特别是第二层输出的MEC到齿状回和海马的作用。相应的研究人类的深度知觉适应啮齿类动物的任务将提供翻译的洞察视觉感知和环境连续性在人类空间认知中的作用。

Since the discovery of place and grid cells, the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex have become the epicentre for the cognitive map, a neural representation of an animal's local environment. Subsequent discoveries of cells which code for head direction, speed, orientation, salient landmarks, and environmental boundaries have all further contributed to our ever more complex understanding of the cognitive map and its arrangement in the brain.Despite these discoveries, how the brain receives allocentric sensory inputs and converts them into interpretable neural signals which effect perception and behaviour is still poorly understood. Present rodent behavioural research primarily involves the use of an empty enclosure with little inclusion of the local landmarks essential for navigation that are abundant in the wild. With recent research showing that distortions in local environmental geometry can impair navigation in rats and produce corresponding distortion of the grid cell field, understanding the relationship between the environment, physical sensation, and conscious perception in the context of spatial reasoning is of paramount importance.This PhD project aims to combine rodent electrophysiology and human psychophysics to explore the relationship between spatial cognition and visual perception by investigating how perception is influenced by changing environmental cues. Through the use of in vivo electrophysiological recording of cells in the hippocampus and medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) during animal behavioural testing, the effect of environmental distortion and changing local landmarks on spatial reasoning ability will be investigated. Additionally, transgenic animal lines will be used to explore the role of neurogenesis and specific structures involved in the cognitive map in neural coding for the environment, particularly the layer II output of the MEC into the dentate gyrus and hippocampus. A corresponding study of human depth perception adapted from the rodent tasks will provide translational insights into the role of visual perception and environmental continuity in human spatial cognition.