Emergent elasticity in the neural code for space

Significance We develop a theoretical model, grounded in known properties of neural dynamics and synaptic plasticity, that can fuse information gathered from the past history of velocity and sequence of encountered landmarks during exploratory behavior, to construct a self-consistent internal representation of space. Moreover, through model reduction techniques, we obtain conceptual insights into how consistent internal spatial representations naturally emerge through an elastic relaxation process in an effective spring–particle system. We verify several experimentally testable predictions of our model involving the spatial behavior of grid cells in the medial entorhinal cortex, as well as suggest additional experiments.