Program in Cognitive Science and Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Dec 21;118(51). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2119670118.
The question of why our conceptions of space and time are intertwined with memory in the hippocampal formation is at the forefront of much current theorizing about this brain system. In this article I argue that animals bridge spatial and temporal gaps through the creation of internal models that allow them to act on the basis of things that exist in a distant place and/or existed at a different time. The hippocampal formation plays a critical role in these processes by stitching together spatiotemporally disparate entities and events. It does this by 1) constructing cognitive maps that represent extended spatial contexts, incorporating and linking aspects of an environment that may never have been experienced together; 2) creating neural trajectories that link the parts of an event, whether they occur in close temporal proximity or not, enabling the construction of event representations even when elements of that event were experienced at quite different times; and 3) using these maps and trajectories to simulate possible futures. As a function of these hippocampally driven processes, our subjective sense of both space and time are interwoven constructions of the mind, much as the philosopher Immanuel Kant postulated.
为什么我们的时空概念会与海马体中的记忆交织在一起，这个问题是当前关于该大脑系统理论的前沿问题。在本文中，我认为动物通过创建内部模型来弥合空间和时间上的差距，从而使它们能够根据存在于远处或不同时间的事物进行行动。海马体在这些过程中起着至关重要的作用，它将时空上不同的实体和事件缝合在一起。它通过以下方式实现这一点：1）构建认知地图，代表扩展的空间背景，整合和链接可能从未一起经历过的环境方面；2）创建神经轨迹，将事件的各个部分联系起来，无论它们是否在时间上非常接近，从而即使事件的元素是在不同的时间经历的，也能够构建事件表示；3）使用这些地图和轨迹来模拟可能的未来。作为这些由海马体驱动的过程的功能，我们的时空主观感觉是心灵的交织结构，就像哲学家伊曼纽尔·康德所假设的那样。
