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SUMMARY:Integrating Random Memory Patterns and Spatial Maps in Food-Cachin
 g Birds - Speaker to be confirmed
DTSTART:20250311T150000Z
DTEND:20250311T163000Z
UID:TALK229279@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:124819
DESCRIPTION:A major challenge in neuroscience is understanding how the hip
 pocampus encodes numerous episodic memories without interference while mai
 ntaining spatial representations. While theoretical considerations favour 
 random\, uncorrelated patterns for episodic memory storage\, most experime
 ntal studies focus on spatial memory that is highly structured. In this jo
 urnal club\, we will explore recent work in chickadees\, a species that re
 lies on precise memory for food caching\, to investigate how hippocampal c
 ircuits integrate random patterns with structured spatial codes. The first
  study [1] demonstrates that place cells not only encode an animal’s loc
 ation but also respond when the bird gazes at distant locations\, suggesti
 ng a unified hippocampal representation of attended space. The second stud
 y [2] identifies sparse\, high-dimensional ‘barcode’ patterns that uni
 quely label individual caching events\, coexisting with conventional place
  cell activity but remaining mostly uncorrelated to spatial proximity. The
  third study [3] presents a computational model in which chaotic recurrent
  network dynamics generate barcodes that serve as memory indices while mai
 ntaining a structured code for spatial memory. Together\, these findings b
 ridge theoretical ideas of hippocampal indexing with empirical data\, offe
 ring a new perspective on how the brain simultaneously supports spatial na
 vigation and episodic memory storage.\n[1] Payne\, H. L.\, & Aronov\, D. (
 2024). Remote activation of place codes by gaze in a highly visual animal.
  bioRxiv\, 2024-09.\n[2] Chettih\, S. N.\, Mackevicius\, E. L.\, Hale\, S.
 \, & Aronov\, D. (2024). Barcoding of episodic memories in the hippocampus
  of a food-caching bird. Cell\, 187(8)\, 1922-1935.\n[3] Fang\, C.\, Linds
 ey\, J.\, Abbott\, L. F.\, Aronov\, D.\, & Chettih\, S. (2024). Barcode ac
 tivity in a recurrent network model of the hippocampus enables efficient m
 emory binding. bioRxiv.
LOCATION:CBL Seminar Room\, Engineering Department\, 4th floor Baker build
 ing
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