A self-organizing model of place cells with grid-structured receptive fields

Abstract

In this article, we propose a new information separation model consisting of two vector quantization (VQ) layers, the superior layer and the inferior. The inferior VQ layer receives inhibitory input from the superior via anti-Hebbian synapses, which forces the winner on the inferior layer to be distributed independently of that on the superior. Supplied with input vectors carrying 2D positional information, the inferior layer can self-organize place-cell-like units with a grid-structured receptive field which shows a remarkable resemblance to that of “grid cells” found recently in the entorhinal cortex of a rat.