Nearly 50 years ago, neuroscientists discovered cells within the brain’s hippocampus that store memories of specific locations. These cells also play an important role in storing memories of events, known as episodic memories. While the mechanism of how place cells encode spatial memory has been well-characterized, it has remained a puzzle how they encode episodic memories.A new model developed by MIT researchers explains how those place cells can be recruited to form episodic memories, even when there’s no spatial component. According to this model, place cells, along with grid cells…
