Top Highlights

• We propose that a topological framework, more like a subway map, would provide the hippocampus a more powerful, flexible, and readily formed spatial substrate for creating experiential memories or evaluating the spatial context of behaviors
• (distances and angles)
• By explicitly counterposing geometry and topology in this series of experiments, we have demonstrated that hippocampal place cells show a remarkable degree of stability with respect to even dramatic geometrical changes in the environment: they retained their relative order and connectivity despite routes involving diametrically opposite protrusions...
• Our topological hypothesis predicts that, within limits (which are as yet unknown), geometric transformations should cause only rate remapping while the sequence of firing remains invariant.
• The notion that the hippocampus encodes topological relationships could help clarify the spatial vs non-spatial debate that has gone on for many years

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