Christian Doeller:

Structuring experience in cognitive spaces

The fundamental question in cognitive neuroscience—what are the key coding principles of the brain enabling human thinking—still remains largely unanswered.

Evidence from neurophysiology suggests that place and grid cells in the hippocampal-entorhinal system provide an internal spatial map, the brain’s SatNav  – the most intriguing neuronal coding scheme outside the sensory system.

Our framework is concerned with the key idea that this navigation system in the brain—potentially as a result of evolution—provides the blueprint for a neural metric underlying human cognition.

In this talk, Christian Doeller will give an overview of the theoretical framework and experimental approach and will present show-case examples from fMRI, MEG and virtual reality experiments identifying cognitive coding mechanisms in the hippocampal-entorhinal system and beyond.

Prof. Dr. Christian Doeller is currently Director of the Department of Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany and Vice President of the Max Planck Society. Furthermore he holds Honorary Professorships at Leipzig University and at the Technical University Dresden, Germany. He is also Adjunct Professor of Medicine (Neuroscience) at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, NTNU in Trondheim, Norway.