It’s about time: temporal codes in the human hippocampus and entorhinal cortex (360G-Wellcome-203836_Z_16_A)

The hippocampus has long been considered a critical brain region for both episodic memory and spatial navigation. In addition, recent investigations have revealed that cells in the hippocampus also code for the passage of time. I aim to establish whether these temporal codes play a critical role in the organization of memory. To do so I will focus on the relationship between the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. I will test the prediction that grid-cells in entorhinal cortex map the temporal dimensions of past experience, analogous to their well-established role in spatial processing. Furthermore, I will assess how temporal grid-codes organize memories to facilitate novel inference. The research will be conducted in humans, where there are well-validated fMRI tools for measuring entorhinal grid-codes and, unlike in rodents, complex behaviour can be easily assessed. These studies will provide insight into how the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex together contribute to episodic memory by organizing past experience across both space and time.