Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of California San Francisco, 675 Nelson Rising Lane, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA.
Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience, University of California San Francisco, 675 Nelson Rising Lane, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2022 Dec 19;377(1866):20210336. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0336. Epub 2022 Oct 31.
Imagination is a biological function that is vital to human experience and advanced cognition. Despite this importance, it remains unknown how imagination is realized in the brain. Substantial research focusing on the hippocampus, a brain structure traditionally linked to memory, indicates that firing patterns in spatially tuned neurons can represent previous and upcoming paths in space. This work has generally been interpreted under standard views that the hippocampus implements cognitive abilities primarily related to actual experience, whether in the past (e.g. recollection, consolidation), present (e.g. spatial mapping) or future (e.g. planning). However, relatively recent findings in rodents identify robust patterns of hippocampal firing corresponding to a variety of alternatives to actual experience, in many cases without overt reference to the past, present or future. Given these findings, and others on hippocampal contributions to human imagination, we suggest that a fundamental function of the hippocampus is to generate a wealth of hypothetical experiences and thoughts. Under this view, traditional accounts of hippocampal function in episodic memory and spatial navigation can be understood as particular applications of a more general system for imagination. This view also suggests that the hippocampus contributes to a wider range of cognitive abilities than previously thought. This article is part of the theme issue 'Thinking about possibilities: mechanisms, ontogeny, functions and phylogeny'.
想象是一种对人类体验和高级认知至关重要的生物功能。尽管如此，想象如何在大脑中实现仍然未知。大量集中在海马体上的研究，一个传统上与记忆相关的大脑结构，表明在空间调谐神经元中的发射模式可以代表空间中的过去和未来路径。这项工作通常是在标准观点下进行解释的，即海马体主要实现与实际经验相关的认知能力，无论是过去（例如回忆、巩固）、现在（例如空间映射）还是未来（例如规划）。然而，最近在啮齿动物中的发现确定了与各种替代实际经验相对应的海马体放电的强大模式，在许多情况下，没有明显地参考过去、现在或未来。鉴于这些发现，以及其他关于海马体对人类想象的贡献，我们认为海马体的一个基本功能是产生丰富的假设经验和想法。在这种观点下，传统的海马体在情景记忆和空间导航中的功能可以被理解为更一般的想象系统的特定应用。这种观点还表明，海马体对比以前认为的更广泛的认知能力做出贡献。本文是主题为“思考可能性：机制、个体发生、功能和系统发生”的一部分。
