martincidmagAn octopus used a mirror to find food it couldn’t see, a first for any invertebrate
https://www.martincid.com/science/octopus-mirror-hidden-food-invertebrate-first-2/
El Duvelle NeuroRE: https://fediscience.org/@rmgrieves/116692850991318267
“This is a hill I’ll die on!” - says the scientist feeding smelly paste to rats running in a home-made maze with hills and troughs just like the waves in the rat’s brain and the emotions in the scientist’s life… 🏔️ 🌊 🧠
@rmgrieves 's latest paper is out, with rats on hills, #PlaceCells recordings and modelling looking at how the brain maps real-life environments: Hippocampal place cells map terrain geometry independently of behavior
It was great fun to work with him and Jeff Taube on this, even with all the emotional rollercoasters (inherent to science-making)!
#Neuroscience #Hippocampus #3DMapping #NeuroRat #SpatialCognition
Sometimes you wonder why the labs with all the funding (not just this one! This is just one example) do not do slightly more risky experiments instead of rediscovering the wheel.. 🤔 This is something anyone who records in hippocampus has observed and there's even specific papers about it.
Place cells in CA1 lack topographical organization of firing locations
See for example Redish et al., 2001: Independence of Firing Correlates of Anatomically Proximate Hippocampal Pyramidal Cells from @adredish (at least it is cited)
Our paper on the poor replicability of Tolman, Richie & Kalish, 1946 - the famous "Sunburst maze" - is out!
Last author @rmgrieves made a very nice thread about it here:
https://fediscience.org/@rmgrieves/115844897663215766
The article: Tolman's Sunburst Maze 80 Years on: A Meta-Analysis Reveals Poor Replicability and Little Evidence for Shortcutting
I'll just add that this doesn't at all question the #CognitiveMap theory, which is quite strongly supported by diverse lines of evidence - but it shows that one of the elements previously used to support the theory, the ability to choose a shortcut over unexplored space, is not that clearly demonstrated!
Importantly, this also shows that it is crucial to consider papers in their context and to make sure results are consistently replicable before changing them into scientific facts!
PS: I managed to attract Roddy to Mastodon - it would be great to show him we can get at least as much interaction on here as with his similar thread on Bluesky
#SpatialCognition #Neuroscience #Shortcutting #Tolman #Sunburst #ReplicabilityCrisis
Roddy GrievesCan humans and animals really use internal maps to navigate and take shortcuts?
Tolman famously argued "yes" - based largely on his Sunburst maze experiment.
However, our new review & meta-analysis suggests the evidence is far weaker than you might think.
🧵👇 https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.70365
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#neuroESC #navigation #neuroscience #neuroethology #SpatialCognition #AnimalBehaviour #shortcutting #cognitivemap #tolman
Hello Mastodon 👋
I study how brains navigate space - from 2D mazes to fully 3D environments. My focus is on hippocampal place cells, entorhinal grid cells, and head direction cells, combining behavior, electrophysiology, and computational models.
I’m here to share lab findings, discuss interesting papers, and explore how animals map and move through the world.
Occasionally, I’ll highlight moments when the brain does something unexpectedly clever (or confusing).
Excited to meet people in neuroscience and beyond. Always happy to chat about space, brains, or just interesting science in general. 🧠🌍
#neuroesc #navigation #neuroscience #neuroethology #introduction #SpatialCognition
Very cool retrospective AND review of the hippocampal #SpatialCognition field from Neil Burgess:
Oscillations and Boundaries in My Route Through the Hippocampal Cognitive Map
Mentions @adredish @tom_hartley and many others, unfortunately not on Mastodon I think
#Neuroscience #PlaceCells #GridCells #Hippocampus #ThetaRhythm
El DuvelleMy colleague asks what is a good and easy-to-use software to create and run #VirtualReality experiments in humans?
Something that works with one of those VR headsets, but ideally would also work on a normal computer screen in a non VR version... Their experience with coding is mostly with Matlab... Any suggestions?
RDNMusicians demonstrate better whole-body spatial cognition than non-musicians.
Summary: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-musicians-drift-blindfolded-musical-cognitive.html
Original paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945225002680
Musicians drift less in blindfolded walk: Could musical training be utilized in cognitive rehabilitation?
A multi-institutional team of researchers led by Université de Montréal report that extensive musical training can steady the body in space, both with and without guiding sounds, during a blindfolded stepping test.