Abstract
Different neural systems are involved in animal navigation
depending on the type of task. Experimental studies support
the idea that the hippocampus is necessary to learn a spatial
representation required to navigate toward hidden goals (place
response), whereas the dorsolateral striatum is involved in the
learning of stimulus-response associations when navigating toward
visible (or cued) goals. These systems compete for action selection
according to the characteristics of the task, previous experience
(e.g. training procedure) or endogenous factors. This paper reviews
both experimental data on the theory of multiple memory systems
involved in navigation and a recent computational model of action
selection based on the competition of place and cue-responses learnt
during training. The model implements separately the two types of
response, i.e. place response and stimulus response. Furthermore,
competition takes place to select which behaviour will be actually
performed. The model was tested in a simulated environment using a
protocol analogous to those used in experiments with animals.