Brain mechanisms for structuring and searching through knowledge via cognitive maps

Simone Viganò (Neurospin, CEA & Université Paris-Saclay)

A central challenge for the brain is not only storing knowledge, but organizing it in a form that can be flexibly searched, recombined, and used to guide behavior. Over the past decade, the cognitive map framework has emerged as one leading account of how this may be achieved, proposing that neural systems involved in spatial navigation also support the representation of abstract relationships among concepts, memories, and experiences.
In this talk, I will discuss a series of fMRI, sEEG, and eye-tracking studies conducted in recent years to investigate how cognitive maps support the organization, retrieval, and exploration of knowledge across different domains. These studies suggest ways in which the cognitive map framework may be extended to accommodate some of the distinctive characteristics of primate interactions with the environment and human conceptual knowledge.