Archive: https://archive.today/bWQyt From the post: >>Have you ever gotten a flash of a different route you could have taken while stuck in traffic? This isn’t just a fleeting thought, but rather a fundamental neurological process, according to findings recently published in Nature Communications. The hippocampus—the brain’s GPS—creates an internal representation of our surrounding environment, known as a cognitive map. And a true cognitive map, says senior author George Dragoi, MD, PhD, allows for flexible navigation, not just memorized paths. “If you can operate a detour in any path that you think of, that means your brain has a map," says Dragoi, associate professor of psychiatry and of neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine.