Decoding the Grid Cells for Metric Navigation Using the Residue Numeral System

Knowing that the grid cells in the dorso-lateral band of the medial entorhinal cortex are a necessary component of rat's ability to perform path integration and homing, we explore the idea proposed by Fiete et al. (2008, J. Neurosci. 28(27):6858) that they might encode the coordinates of the rat in a Residue Number System. We show that the decoding network based on a gradient descent they propose to use for that purpose does not operate satisfactorily, and thus propose a network using a direct approach derived from the Chinese Remainder Theorem.