{"id":195,"date":"2017-03-27T15:57:07","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T19:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mind-brain\/?post_type=people&p=195"},"modified":"2025-08-29T12:05:01","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:05:01","slug":"james-knierim","status":"publish","type":"people","link":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/mbi\/directory\/james-knierim\/","title":{"rendered":"James Knierim"},"featured_media":856,"template":"","role":[61],"filter":[],"class_list":["post-195","people","type-people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","role-faculty"],"acf":[],"post_meta_fields":{"_edit_lock":["1756486300:729"],"_edit_last":["729"],"_thumbnail_id":["856"],"ecpt_people_alpha":["Knierim"],"ecpt_position":["Professor of Neuroscience"],"ecpt_degrees":["PhD, California Institute of Technology"],"ecpt_expertise":["Behavioral Neurophysiology of the Hippocampal Formation"],"ecpt_email":["jknierim@jhu.edu"],"ecpt_office":["403 Macaulay Hall\/337 Krieger Hall"],"ecpt_bio":["

Dr. James Knierim is a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focuses on the neurophysiology of memory in the hippocampal formation. Dr. Knierim is a researcher at the Zanvyl Krieger Mind\/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins.<\/p>\r\n

His work has investigated how the zero-gravity environment of NASA's Space Shuttle affects spatial orientation; how the sense of direction (your \"internal compass\") affects spatial perceptions; and how objects and landmarks become incorporated into the brain's \"cognitive map\" of an environment in ways that are crucial for the normal formation of long-term memories. Currently, Dr. Knierim is focused on understanding the information processing that occurs in different stages of the hippocampus, from the input representations of the entorhinal cortex through the different subregions within the hippocampus.<\/p>\r\n

After graduating from Haverford College with a BA in psychology, he obtained his PhD in neurobiology at California Institute of Technology, where he studied the primate visual system with David Van Essen. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship with Bruce McNaughton at the University of Arizona, where he studied the spatial firing characteristics of place cells and head direction cells of the rat hippocampus and limbic system. In 1998, he started his own laboratory in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. He joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2009.<\/p>"],"ecpt_research":["

Behavioral Neurophysiology of the Hippocampal Formation<\/h4>\r\n

Work in our laboratory attempts to understand the flow of information through the hippocampal formation and the computations performed by the various subfields of the hippocampus and its inputs from the entorhinal cortex. To address these issues, we use multi-electrode arrays to record the extracellular action potentials from scores of well-isolated hippocampal neurons in freely moving rats. These neurons have the fascinating property of being selectively active when the rat occupies restricted locations in its environment. They are termed \"place cells,\" and it has been suggested that these cells form a cognitive map of the environment (O'Keefe and Nadel, The hippocampus as a cognitive map). The animal uses this map to navigate efficiently in its environment and to learn and remember important locations. It is also hypothesized that these cells play a major role in the formation of episodic (autobiographical) memories. Place cells thus constitute a tremendous opportunity to investigate the mechanisms by which the brain transforms sensory input into an internal, cognitive representation of the world \"out there\" and then uses this representation as the framework that organizes and stores memories of past events.<\/p>\r\n

Example of Research<\/h4>\r\n

\"Parallel<\/a>Parallel streams of processing through the hippocampus.<\/strong>\u00a0The medial entorhinal cortex provides spatial input through the firing of grid cells. The lateral entorhinal cortex provides object and local-cue information. The dentate gyrus and CA3 regions provide a processing side-loop that is essential for such memory functions as autoassociation and object + place (or item + context) configurations, which may be the critical framework for storing episodic memories.<\/p>"],"ecpt_publications":["

Research Papers<\/h4>\r\n

PubMed Listing<\/a><\/p>\r\n