A model of spatial recall, mental imagery and neglect. Advances in neural information proce.pdf

Modelling spatial recall, mental imagery and neglect Suzanna Becker Department of Psychology McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Hamilton, Ont. Canada L8S 4K1 becker@mcmaster.ca Neil Burgess Department of Anatomy and Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL 17 Queen Square London, UK WC1N 3AR n.burgess@ucl.ac.uk Abstract We present a computational model of the neural mechanisms in the pari- etal and temporal lobes that support spatial navigation, recall of scenes and imagery of the products of recall. Long term representations are stored in the hippocampus, and are associated with local spatial and object-related features in the parahippocampal region. Viewer-centered representations are dynamically generated from long term memory in the parietal part of the model. The model thereby simulates recall and im- agery of locations and objects in complex environments. After parietal damage, the model exhibits hemispatial neglect in mental imagery that rotates with the imagined perspective of the observer, as in the famous Milan Square experiment [1]. Our model makes novel predictions for the neural representations in the parahippocampal and parietal regions and for behavior in healthy volunteers and neuropsychological patients. 1 Introduction We perform spatial computations everday. Tasks such as reaching and navigating around visible obstacles are predominantly sensory-driven rather than memory-based, and pre- sumably rely upon egocentric, or viewer-centered representations of space. These repre- sentations, and the ability to translate between them, have been accounted for in several computational models of the parietal cortex e.g. [2, 3]. In other situations such as route planning, recall and imagery for scenes or events one must also reply upon representations of spatial layouts from long-term memory. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies implicate both the parietal and hippocampal regions in such tasks [4, 5], with the long-term memory component associate