I simulated the Continuous Attractor Network model of grid cells. Here’s an initial look.

Here are 4096 groups of 4 neurons. Below, I hover over a cell to show its inhibitory output. The red cells are inhibited by the selected cell.


These cells are arranged into groups of 4, with one cell devoted to each direction. The “preferred direction” of the top cell in each group is North, the right cell East, the bottom cell South, and the left cell West. The North cell inhibits a ring of cells slightly “north” of the cell. The North cell also receives excitatory feedforward input when the animal moves north (this isn’t depicted). The same is true of the East, South, and West cells.

In the simulation below, I give each neuron a random initial firing rate (shown in black), then I let some time pass. The velocity input is 0. Each cell gets an equal amount of feedforward input.


It forms a near-perfect hexagonal lattice. The lattice is always oriented parallel to either the horizontal or vertical axis.

I kinda understand why the grid prefers to align with one of these axes. It has something to do with the periodic map of cells. The space here is similar to a game of “Asteroids” – when your ship goes off the right edge, it appears on the left side. If you go straight left or straight up, you’ll soon reach your starting point, but this isn’t true of other directions. If the topology were more like the surface of a sphere, rather than this “Asteroids” model, then all orientations would be equally likely.

Now I give it some velocity input. Below, I give extra feedforward input to every S and E cell.


This causes the lattice of active cells to shift. If you record an individual cell, you’ll find that it has a hexagonal firing field, just like a grid cell.