Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Every day we make decisions critical for adaptation and survival. We repeat actions with known consequences. But we also draw on loosely related events to infer and imagine the outcome of entirely novel choices. These inferential decisions are thought to engage a number of brain regions; however, the underlying neuronal computation remains unknown. Here, we use a multi-day cross-species approach in humans and mice to report the functional anatomy and neuronal computation underlying inferential decisions. We show that during successful inference, the mammalian brain uses a hippocampal prospective code to forecast temporally structured learned associations. Moreover, during resting behavior, coactivation of hippocampal cells in sharp-wave/ripples represent inferred relationships that include reward, thereby "joining-the-dots" between events that have not been observed together but lead to profitable outcomes. Computing mnemonic links in this manner may provide an important mechanism to build a cognitive map that stretches beyond direct experience, thus supporting flexible behavior.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/j.cell.2020.08.035

Type

Journal article

Journal

Cell

Publication Date

01/10/2020

Volume

183

Pages

228 - 243.e21

Keywords

cognitive map, cognitive short-cut, hippocampus, humans, inference, memory, mice, prospective code, sharp-wave ripple, Animals, Brain, Decision Making, Female, Hippocampus, Humans, Male, Memory, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Models, Neurological, Nerve Net, Neurons, Prospective Studies, Thinking, Young Adult