37. Jacob Bellmund: Deformed cognitive maps, abstract cognitive spaces, and how many dimensions can grid cells encode?

Oct 1, 2021

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Jacob Bellmund is a postdoc at the Max Planck in Leipzig, studying spatial navigation, cognitive maps, and episodic memory. In this conversation, we talk about his research on deforming cognitive maps, abstract cognitive maps, and the translation of the spatial navigation literature to abstract spaces.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New episodes every Friday. You can find the podcast on all podcasting platforms (e.g., Spotify, Apple/Google Podcasts, etc.).

Timestamps
00:05: How Jacob started working on cognitive maps
02:05: What are place cells, grid cells, and cognitive maps?
08:49: Discussing Jacob's paper "Deforming the metric of cognitive maps distorts memory"
28:34: Abstract cognitive spaces
41:57: How far do findings from spatial navigation translate to cognitive spaces?
50:40: How many dimensions can grid cells encode?
58:01: What is Jacob going to work on next?

Podcast links

Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Jacob's links

Website: https://www.jacobbellmund.com/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=_DRs4ukAAAAJ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jacobbellmund

Ben's links

Website: www.bjks.blog/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bjks_tweets

References
Auger, ..., & Maguire (2017). Efficacy of navigation may be influenced by retrosplenial cortex-mediated learning of landmark stability. Neuropsychologia.
Bellmund, ..., & Doeller (2016). Grid-cell representations in mental simulation. Elife.
Bellmund, ..., & Doeller (2018). Navigating cognition: Spatial codes for human thinking. Science.
Bellmund, ... , & Doeller (2020). Deforming the metric of cognitive maps distorts memory. Nat Hum Behav.
Jacob wrote a Blog Post about his Nature Human Behaviour article: https://socialsciences.nature.com/posts/55610-distorting-human-memory?channel_id=1745-behind-the-paper
Butler, ..., & Giocomo (2019). Remembered reward locations restructure entorhinal spatial maps. Science.
Constantinescu, ..., & Behrens (2016). Organizing conceptual knowledge in humans with a gridlike code. Science.
Doeller, ..., & Burgess (2010). Evidence for grid cells in a human memory network. Nature.
Hafting, ... , & Moser (2005). Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex. Nature.
Gärdenfors (2004). Conceptual spaces: The geometry of thought. MIT press.
Ginosar, ... , & Ulanovsky (2021). Locally ordered representation of 3D space in the entorhinal cortex. Nature.
Grieves, ... , & Jeffery (2021). Irregular distribution of grid cell firing fields in rats exploring a 3D volumetric space. Nature Neuro.
Kim & Doeller (2021). Adaptive cognitive maps for curved surfaces in the 3D world. bioRxiv. p
Krupic, ... , & O’Keefe (2015). Grid cell symmetry is shaped by environmental geometry. Nature.