ArticleScience advances2026
Hippocampal place cells map terrain geometry independently of behavior.
Article in Science advances, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
How does the brain map uneven terrain? While spatial neurons such as hippocampal place cells and entorhinal grid cells have been extensively studied in flat, horizontal environments, the natural world is hilly and irregular. To investigate how place cells represent irregular terrain, we recorded from the hippocampus of rats foraging across either flat or ridged terrain. Place cell activity reflected terrain shape, consistent with a surface-bound cognitive map rather than a volumetric one. Place fields were elongated parallel to terrain contours, which contrasted with the movement biases of the rats, and are inconsistent with a predictive coding model. Reflecting the importance of terrain information, a third of the place cells exhibited repeating fields on each ridge. A boundary vector cell model of place cell firing replicated these results. These findings demonstrate that the cognitive map is sensitive to topography, bringing our understanding of spatial cognition closer to the real world.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.