Spatial Learning in Animals

Synonyms

Place learning; Spatial navigation

Definition

Spatial learning refers to the process through which animals encode information about their environment to facilitate navigation through space and recall the location of motivationally relevant stimuli. This form of learning is critically dependent on the integrity of the hippocampus, although surrounding regions of the temporal cortex and certain forebrain structures also play a role in these processes. It is generally believed that spatial learning entails encoding of the locations of cues relative to the position of other cues in a particular environment that leads to the formation of a cognitive map of an individual’s surroundings. Thus, during spatial learning, animals use allocentric spatial cues to navigate in space, keeping track of their position relative to other distal stimuli. Support for this notion comes from the finding of place cells in the hippocampus, where different groups of neurons in this region display...