New Books in Neuroscience

Christopher Kemp, "Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation" (Norton, 2022)

Aug 24, 2025
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ANECDOTE

Personal Origin Of The Book

  • Christopher Kemp chose the topic because he is personally very bad at navigation and wanted to understand the gap with his wife.
  • His personal struggle drove years of research and became the book's origin story.
INSIGHT

Navigation Is A Complex Continuous Task

  • Navigation requires knowing where you are, where you want to go, and how to get there while continuously updating your plan.
  • Christopher Kemp calls navigation one of the most complicated routine tasks the brain performs.
INSIGHT

Neurons That Build Cognitive Maps

  • The brain builds a cognitive map from specialized neurons: place cells, head-direction cells, and grid cells.
  • These cells encode location, heading, and a spatial grid to let the hippocampus represent environment layout.
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