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The article comments on reports within the issue by researchers M. M. Yartsev and colleagues and J. G. Heys and team on the perception and neural coding of three-dimensional (3D) space in mammal brains, with particular focus on the mapping of place cell neurons in the hippocampus and grid cells in the medial entorhinal cortex. Yartsev and team looked at brain theta wave activity and 3D space encoding of hippocampal neurons of bats in flight. Heys and team compared theta rhythms of medial entorhinal cortex grid cells of bats and rats related to space coding.

The article reports that cognitive spaces provide a domaingeneral format for processing in the hippocampalentorhinal region, in line with its involvement beyond navigation and memory. It mentions that technological advances such as calcium imaging will clarify coding principles on the population level and facilitate the translation to human cognitive neuroscience.