Volker Reisner

Happy to share this early Christmas present 🎄: our paper about geometry- and locomotion-dependence of 3D memory got published in PNAS! Joint work with co-first-author Volker Reisner (@reisnerv.bsky.social) as well as Leonard König, Misun Kim & Christian Doeller
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/

Huge thanks to co-first author @theoschaefer.bsky.social, alongside Leonard König, Misun Kim, and @doellerlab.bsky.social (8/8)

@mpicbs.bsky.social @pnas.org

Conclusion: Humans map 3D space in an adaptive manner. The constraints and affordances of movement fundamentally re-weight geometric vs. body-based cues, shaping how volumetric space is represented. (7/8)

Walking: memory was more precise vertically than horizontally, consistent with using the gravity-aligned body axis as a “vertical ruler“. Modeling supported this with a ground-weighted boundary-proximity model (excluding reliance on the ceiling). (6/8)

Flying: memory was more precise horizontally than vertically, showed a comparatively uniform boundary dependence across dimensions, and responses in deformed environments were best explained by a 3D boundary-proximity model inspired by boundary vector cells. (5/8)

We found that humans reliably remember object locations in fully volumetric 3D space, but the mode of locomotion strongly influenced memory precision along the vertical dimension. (4/8)

To test this, we ran an iVR experiment where participants learned freely floating object-locations inside a 3D enclosure. Subsequently, they replaced them both in the original space and after geometric deformations. Crucially, we compared two modes of locomotion: walking vs. virtually flying. (3/8)

We built on classic work showing that boundaries strongly shape cognitive maps in 2D. What’s less clear is how this generalizes to fully 3D space, where locomotion changes which cues are reliable. So we asked: Does the way we move alter which spatial cues we rely on to remember 3D locations? (2/8)

We’re very happy to share that our work on 3D spatial memory was published in PNAS just before the end of the year! 🎉
Link: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
(1/8)

Congrats Volker (‪@reisnerv.bsky.social‬). Collab with Doellerlab, modeling by Viktor Studenyak via the Neural Computation Group

Massive thanks to the amazing co-authors Leonard König, Viktor Studenyak, Marcia Bécu, @andrejbicanski.bsky.social & Christian Doeller

Re-enacting steps supports human path integration consistent with motor-corrected grid cell drift Efficient navigation, especially in the absence of vision, requires path integration - the continuous updating of spatial position from self-motion cues. However, path integration is prone to cumulati...

New preprint! We explored how learned movement patterns affect our sense of traveled distance and proposed a neurocomputational model that leverages embodied memories to denoise spatial codes.

🔗 www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Our paper in @natcomms.nature.com, we show how cognitive maps in the hippocampal system could solve the general problem of representing and relating multiple alternative action plans. 
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

With @doellerlab.bsky.social, Patrick Haggard, @vigano.bsky.social, Daniel Reznik

Locomotion-dependent use of geometric and body cues in humans mapping 3D space The ability to represent locations across multiple dimensions of space is a core function of cognitive maps. While the influence of boundary-dependent environmental geometry on spatial representations...

Curious about spatial memory in 3D? Our new preprint explores how environmental boundaries and the way we move affect our memory for locations in volumetric space!

Huge congrats to co-1st @theoschaefer.bsky.social w/ Leonard König, Misun Kim, Christian Doeller.

🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Human neural dynamics of real-world and imagined navigation - Nature Human Behaviour Seeber et al. studied brain recordings from implanted electrodes in freely moving humans. Neural dynamics encoded actual and imagined routes similarly, demonstrating parallels between navigational, im...

🚨 New lab paper!🚨

A dream study of mine for nearly 20 yrs not possible until now thanks to NIH 🧠 funding & 1st-author lead @seeber.bsky.social

We tracked hippocampal activity as people walked memory-guided paths & imagined them again. Did brain patterns reappear?🧵👇

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The time course and organization of hippocampal replay The mechanisms by which the brain replays neural activity sequences remain unknown. Recording from large ensembles of hippocampal place cells in freely behaving rats, we observed that replay content i...

1/19 I’m thrilled that my postdoctoral work, with John Widloski and David Foster is now out in @science.org, along with a wonderful preview by Daniel Bendor!

Left–right-alternating theta sweeps in entorhinal–hippocampal maps of space - Nature A study in rats proposes a mechanism for how the brain maps the surrounding environment, including places it has never seen, by alternating left and right forward sweeps in successive theta cycles.

Grid cells have a geometry in time. Thanks to @azvollan.bsky.social l & @rjgardner.bsky.social for this heroic discovery. @ercresearch.bsky.social
#KiloNeurons @m-bmoser.bsky.social @kavlintnu.bsky.social @nature.com
@kavlifoundation.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...