Cue and goal encoding in rodents: A source of inspiration for robotics?

Abstract

To navigate in their environment, rodents are able to rely on a variety of behavioral strategies. The most flexible strategies result from their ability to form spatial representations that encode information about spatial cues and about important places (nest, goals, etc). In the present chapter, we address the issues of cue and place encoding in the brain brain and suggest that they are crucial processes for behavioral flexibility and adaptation to environmental changes. First, it is suggested that, due to a different spatial distribution (distant vs. nearby) or nature (allothetic allothetic vs. idiothetic) of spatial cues, animals use and have to coordinate the use of multiple spatial reference frames. This involves activation of various brain regions including the hippocampus and neocortical areas. In particular, location-specifc activity of hippocampal neurons (place cells) place cell has been shown to be controlled by different reference frames. Second, we present new data suggesting that activity of prefrontal cortex neurons reflects goal encoding. It is concluded that the knowledge of these mechanisms in animals may be a source of inspiration to improve the adaptive capacities of navigating robots. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.