Do grid codes afford generalization and flexible decision-making?

Abstract

Behavioral flexibility is learning from previous experiences and planning appropriate actions in a changing or novel environment. Successful behavioral adaptation depends on internal models the brain builds to represent the relational structure of an abstract task. Emerging evidence suggests that the well-known roles of the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex (HC-EC) in integrating spatial relationships into cognitive maps can be extended to map the transition structure between states in non-spatial abstract tasks. However, what the EC grid-codes actually compute to afford generalization remains elusive. We introduce two non-exclusive ideas regarding what grid-codes may represent to afford higher-level cognition. One idea is that grid-codes are eigenvectors of the successor representation (SR) learned online during a task. This view assumes that the grid codes serve as an efficient basis function for learning and representing experienced relationships between entities. Subsequently, the grid codes facilitate generalization in novel contexts such as when the goal changes. The second idea is that the grid-codes reflect the inferred global task structure. This view assumes that the grid-code represents a structural code that is factorized from specific sensory content, enabling structural information to be transferred across tasks. Subsequently, the brain could afford one-shot inferences without requiring experience. The ability to generalize experiences and make appropriate decisions in novel situations is critical for both animals and machines. Here we review proposed computations of the grid-code in the brain, which is potentially critical to behavioral flexibility.