Place cells are specialized neurons in the hippocampus that help animals navigate by creating firing patterns that encode locations within the animals’ surroundings. Traditionally, these cells ...

Following abrupt increases in contrast, the cell fired strongly at first and progressively reduced its firing rate during each 45-s epoch. Following a step decrease in contrast, the cell stopped ...

Prof. Burak explains, "The seemingly random firing patterns of place cells in large environments form 'codewords' that are uniquely assigned to different positions in space.