Current questions on space and time encoding. Issue 6 (15th April 2015) - Hasselmo, Michael E.
ABSTRACT: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 celebrated the groundbreaking findings on place cells and grid cells by John O'Keefe and May‐Britt Moser and Edvard Moser. These findings provided an essential foothold for understanding the cognitive encoding of space and time in episodic memory function. This foothold provides a closer view of a broad new world of important research questions raised by the phenomena of place cells and grid cells. These questions concern the mechanisms of generation of place and grid cell firing, including sensory influences, circuit dynamics and intrinsic properties. Similar questions concern the generation of time cells. In addition, questions concern the functional role of place cells, grid cells and time cells in mediating goal‐directed behavior and episodic memory function. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.