A Survey of Entorhinal Grid Cell Properties

TL;DR

This survey comprehensively reviews a decade of research on entorhinal grid cells, detailing their properties, neural context, and the evolution of models based on new empirical findings.

Contribution

It provides an updated, detailed summary of recent discoveries and theoretical developments regarding grid cell properties and their neural environment.

Findings

Grid cells exhibit periodic firing patterns related to spatial locations.

External cues influence grid cell activity and alignment.

Recent models have been refined to incorporate new empirical data.

Abstract

About a decade ago grid cells were discovered in the medial entorhinal cortex of rat. Their peculiar firing patterns, which correlate with periodic locations in the environment, led to early hypothesis that grid cells may provide some form of metric for space. Subsequent research has since uncovered a wealth of new insights into the characteristics of grid cells and their neural neighborhood, the parahippocampal-hippocampal region, calling for a revision and refinement of earlier grid cell models. This survey paper aims to provide a comprehensive summary of grid cell research published in the past decade. It focuses on the functional characteristics of grid cells such as the influence of external cues or the alignment to environmental geometry, but also provides a basic overview of the underlying neural substrate.