Research Interests
Spatial cognition
Spatial navigation
Learning & memory
Electrophysiology
Autism
Research Description
The Hinman lab is broadly interested in spatial cognition and memory. The lab investigates how the brain represents space in order to navigate the world. To those ends we employ high-density electrophysiology and calcium imaging in freely behaving rats in order to record/image large populations of individual neurons from brain regions such as hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, and striatum while rats engage in a variety of tasks. Such data allows us to identify the coding properties of individual neurons, as well as investigate the structure of population coding.
An important feature of many environments is the social landscape. Knowing who is around you is critically important for many animal species and the Hinman lab is investigating how the brain dynamically represents the spatial location of conspecifics, whether that conspecific is higher or lower in the social hierarchy or a complete stranger. By monitoring cohabitating groups of rats during adolescence we identify the social relationship between each member of the group and then record or image neural activity during social interactions between pairs of rats with a known relationship. By incorporating genetic Autism model rats in the group we are investigating how the neural representation of others is altered in animals with known differences in social interactions.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
Neuroscience Program
External Links
Highlighted Publications
Hinman, J. R., Chapman, G. W., & Hasselmo, M. E. (2019). Neuronal representation of environmental boundaries in egocentric coordinates. Nature communications, 10(1), [2772]. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10722-y
Hinman, J. R., Brandon, M. P., Climer, J. R., Chapman, G. W., & Hasselmo, M. E. (2016). Multiple Running Speed Signals in Medial Entorhinal Cortex. Neuron, 91(3), 666-679. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.06.027
Hinman, J. R., Dannenberg, H., Alexander, A. S., & Hasselmo, M. E. (2018). Neural mechanisms of navigation involving interactions of cortical and subcortical structures. Journal of neurophysiology, 119(6), 2007-2029. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00498.2017
Recent Publications
Hasselmo, M. E., & Hinman, J. R. (2022). Computational Neuroscience: Hippocampus. In Neuroscience in the 21st Century: From Basic to Clinical: Third Edition (pp. 3489-3503). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88832-9_175
Alexander, A. S., Carstensen, L. C., Hinman, J. R., Raudies, F., William Chapman, G., & Hasselmo, M. E. (2020). Egocentric boundary vector tuning of the retrosplenial cortex. Science Advances, 6(8), Article eaaz2322. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz2322
Hinman, J. R., Chapman, G. W., & Hasselmo, M. E. (2019). Neuronal representation of environmental boundaries in egocentric coordinates. Nature communications, 10(1), Article 2772. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10722-y
Hinman, J. R., Dannenberg, H., Alexander, A. S., & Hasselmo, M. E. (2018). Neural mechanisms of navigation involving interactions of cortical and subcortical structures. Journal of neurophysiology, 119(6), 2007-2029. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00498.2017
Hasselmo, M. E., & Hinman, J. R. (2017). Marr’s influence on the standard model of hippocampus, and the need for more theoretical advances. In Computational Theories and their Implementation in the Brain: The Legacy of David Marr (pp. 133-158). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198749783.003.0006