Connectionists: REMINDER: World wide VVTNS series (6th season): The hippocampus, spatial planning, generative models and memory consolidation | Wednesday, February 25, 2026, at 11:00 am ET - Neil Burgess University College London

[David Hansel]

[image: VVTNS.png]
https://www.wwtns.online
<https://streaklinks.com/A9c7PbbpKY7PxB6PaAJWGD3-/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wwtns.online>
-
on twitter: wwtns at TheoreticalWide

You are cordially invited to  the lecture

Neil Burgess

University College London


 on the topic of

 *The hippocampus, spatial planning, generative models **and memory
consolidation*
The lecture will be held on zoom on February 25, 2026, at *11:00 am ET *

> To receive the link: https://www.wwtns.online/register-page
>
*Abstract: *Much is known about the neural representations of current
environmental location and direction within the hippocampal formation, but
use of such a “cognitive map” requires the online representation of desired
locations and how to get there, and the neural basis for this function has
been more elusive. I will discuss how “theta sweeps” of place and grid cell
firing encode the current location (at early phases of each theta cycle)
while, at later phases, sampling around the forward direction during
exploration and indicating the direction to desired locations during
goal-directed navigation. I will show how a relatively simple attractor
model captures these results, but requires inputs signalling
movement-direction and goal-direction.I will discuss why it is useful to
consider the hippocampus as a generative model (in which head-direction,
rather than movement-direction, is required, to translate egocentric
sensory inputs to allocentric latent representations and back again) in
explaining its roles in both spatial cognition and memory consolidation.
“Replay sequences” are thought to support offline consolidation, and likely
resemble theta sweeps more than behavioural experience. I will finish
(given time) by considering how human memory consolidation can be seen as
extraction of latent variables from replay via self-supervised learning,
and how this perspective explains aspects of human memory such as
gist-based distortions, imagination and planning.


*About VVTNS : Launched as the World Wide  Theoretical Neuroscience Seminar
(WWTNS) in November 2020 and renamed in homage to Carl van Vreeswijk in
Memoriam (April 20, 2022), Speakers have the occasion to talk about
theoretical aspects of their work which cannot be discussed in a setting
where the majority of the audience consists of experimentalists. The
seminars, **held on Wednesdays at 11 am ET,**  are 45-50 min long followed
by a discussion. The talks are recorded with authorization of the speaker
and are available to everybody on our YouTube channel.*


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