Kant, bees, and the brain’s GPS

How do we find our way around? One obvious method is landmarks. Researchers have identified “place cells” which represent locations in our cognitive map of the world. However, that doesn’t explain how we can find out way around in a place we’ve never been before. In 2005, a second kind of brain cell associated with location was identified in the paper Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex. The new cells were called grid cells: