On behalf of Sen Cheng, Sandhiya Vijayabaskaran and Laurenz Wiskott from the Institute of Neural Computation, Faculty for Computer Science, Ruhr University Bochum, I invite you to attend the colloquium series "*Brains in Space: An Interdisciplinary Research Colloquium on Spatial Navigation*". On Tuesday November 19th Russell Epstein, U. Penn, will talk about "*Spatial knowledge and navigational strategies in the human brain*" *Abstract: *To navigate from place to place, an agent needs to have knowledge of the spatial structure of the world and a strategy for using that knowledge to choose a route. In this talk, I will describe work from my lab that investigates how these core elements of navigation are implemented by the human mind/brain. First, I will describe studies that explore the organization of spatial knowledge ("cognitive maps"). Participants in these experiments were first familiarized with virtual environments containing multiple objects and then scanned with fMRI while recalling the spatial relationships between the objects. Analysis of behavior and fMRI activation patterns revealed that participants' cognitive maps were not simple Euclidean reference frames—rather, they had a rich structure that reflected the environments' segmented and hierarchical organization. Second, I will describe a study that explores the algorithms that people use to navigate to a goal. Participants in this study were scanned with fMRI while performing a "taxi-cab" task that required them to flexibly navigate to multiple possible locations within a virtual city. We found that people's behavioral choices could be explained by a predictive coding (successor representation) model, and that fMRI signals in the hippocampus and neocortical spatial memory regions tracked the different computational components of the model. Together these findings illuminate the representations that people form of environmental spaces and the algorithms they use to navigate to goal locations within these spaces. This is a virtual event and takes place from 4 - 5.30 pm (CET) Zoom link: https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zoom-x.de/j/67839364827?pwd=RfcIgK8OUfjkwWTNCf80ARXy... [Meeting ID: 678 3936 4827; Passcode: 841644] The complete schedule can be found at https://www.ini.rub.de/teaching/courses/colloquium_brains_in_space_an_interd... . * * This colloquium is open to the public. Please feel free to forward this information to any of your colleagues who may be interested. Best, Vinita -- Best, Vinita Vinita Samarasinghe M.Sc., M.A. Science Manager Arbeitsgruppe Computational Neuroscience <https://rub.de/cns> Institut für Neuroinformatik Ruhr-Universität Bochum, NB 3/73 Postfachnummer 110 Universitätstr. 150 44801 Bochum Tel: +49 (0)234 32 27996 Email: samarasinghe@ini.rub.de