Adapting the Structure of Spatial Maps
Event Details
- Type
- Friday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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Lisa Giocomo, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Speaker bio(s)
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Over recent decades, parahippocampal neurons have provided a powerful window into how the brain generates a sense of location. Once thought to supply a stable “GPS-like” code, these circuits are now understood to form flexible, adaptive maps that integrate self-motion, sensory cues, internal state, and experience. The Giocomo lab investigates the mechanisms that construct these maps and the circuit- and state-dependent factors that drive their reorganization. In this talk, Dr. Giocomo will discuss emerging evidence that internal maps undergo rapid transitions and longer-timescale plasticity in novel or behaviorally demanding environments, revealing how the brain updates spatial representations to support navigation and memory.
Lisa Giocomo is a Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She received her Ph.D. from Boston University with Dr. Michael Hasselmo and completed her postdoctoral research with Drs. Edvard and May-Britt Moser at NTNU in Norway. Her lab studies how the brain builds and updates internal “maps” of space and memory in the medial entorhinal cortex, probing how neurons integrate self-motion, environmental cues, behavioral state, and reward to support flexible navigation and cognition. By combining large-scale electrophysiology, imaging, and computational modeling, her work reveals how spatial representations adapt with experience and context.
- Open to
- Tri-Institutional