Dr. Alexander Nitsch: Cognitive maps for memory and prospective decision making

Cognitive maps in the hippocampal-entorhinal system, traditionally known for representing spatial relationships, have been proposed to provide a domain-general mechanism for organizing information. By encoding relationships between states more generally, cognitive maps might support different types of memory and enable flexible behaviors such as prospective decision making. In this talk, I will present results of two neuroimaging studies probing the role of domain-general cognitive maps. I will examine the precise relationship between episodic and spatial memories in the hippocampus, showing that the anterior hippocampus integrates both into a combined representation. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that the entorhinal cortex represents an abstract cognitive map of values to guide prospective decision making by using a grid-like representation. Together, these findings reconcile previous separate accounts of episodic and spatial hippocampal representations and provide important evidence for even more abstract cognitive maps, emphasizing their pivotal role as a domain-general coding principle for organizing information.