How do large language models solve spatial navigation tasks? We investigate this by training GPT-2 models on three spatial learning paradigms in grid environments: passive exploration (Foraging Model- predicting steps in random walks), goal-directed planning (generating optimal shortest paths) on structured Hamiltonian paths (SP-Hamiltonian), and a hybrid model fine-tuned with exploratory data (SP-Random Walk). Using behavioural, representational and mechanistic analyses, we uncover two fundamentally different learned algorithms. The Foraging model develops a robust, map-like representation of space, akin to a 'cognitive map'. Causal interventions reveal that it learns to consolidate spatial information into a self-sufficient coordinate system, evidenced by a sharp phase transition where its reliance on historical direction tokens vanishes by the middle layers of the network. The model also adopts an adaptive, hierarchical reasoning system, switching between a low-level heuristic for short contexts and map-based inference for longer ones. In contrast, the goal-directed models learn a path-dependent algorithm, remaining reliant on explicit directional inputs throughout all layers. The hybrid model, despite demonstrating improved generalisation over its parent, retains the same path-dependent strategy. These findings suggest that the nature of spatial intelligence in transformers may lie on a spectrum, ranging from generalisable world models shaped by exploratory data to heuristics optimised for goal-directed tasks. We provide a mechanistic account of this generalisation-optimisation trade-off and highlight how the choice of training regime influences the strategies that emerge.

By building and updating internal cognitive maps, animals exhibit extraordinary navigation abilities in complex, dynamic environments. Inspired by these biological mechanisms, we present a real time robotic navigation system grounded in the Active Inference Framework (AIF). Our model incrementally constructs a topological map, infers the agent's location, and plans actions by minimising expected uncertainty and fulfilling perceptual goals without any prior training. Integrated into the ROS2 ecosystem, we validate its adaptability and efficiency across both 2D and 3D environments (simulated and real world), demonstrating competitive performance with traditional and state of the art exploration approaches while offering a biologically inspired navigation approach.

Cognitive maps provide a powerful framework for understanding spatial and abstract reasoning in biological and artificial agents. While recent computational models link cognitive maps to hippocampal-entorhinal mechanisms, they often rely on global optimization rules (e.g., backpropagation) that lack biological plausibility. In this work, we propose a novel cognitive architecture for structuring episodic memories into cognitive maps using local, Hebbian-like learning rules, compatible with neural substrate constraints. Our model integrates the Successor Features framework with episodic memories, enabling incremental, online learning through agent-environment interaction. We demonstrate its efficacy in a partially observable grid-world, where the architecture autonomously organizes memories into structured representations without centralized optimization. This work bridges computational neuroscience and AI, offering a biologically grounded approach to cognitive map formation in artificial adaptive agents.

Hippocampal place fields have been shown to reflect behaviorally relevant aspects of space. For instance, place fields tend to be skewed along commonly traveled directions, they cluster around rewarded locations, and they are constrained by the geometric structure of the environment. We hypothesize a set of design principles for the hippocampal cognitive map that explain how place fields represent space in a way that facilitates navigation and reinforcement learning. In particular, we suggest that place fields encode not just information about the current location, but also predictions about future locations under the current transition distribution. Under this model, a variety of place field phenomena arise naturally from the structure of rewards, barriers, and directional biases as reflected in the transition policy. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this representation of space can support efficient reinforcement learning. We also propose that grid cells compute the eigendecomposition of place fields in part because is useful for segmenting an enclosure along natural boundaries. When applied recursively, this segmentation can be used to discover a hierarchical decomposition of space. Thus, grid cells might be involved in computing subgoals for hierarchical reinforcement learning.

A large language model (LLM) can map a feedback causal fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) into text and then reconstruct the FCM from the text. This explainable AI system approximates an identity map from the FCM to itself and resembles the operation of an autoencoder (AE). Both the encoder and the decoder explain their decisions in contrast to black-box AEs. Humans can read and interpret the encoded text in contrast to the hidden variables and synaptic webs in AEs. The LLM agent approximates the identity map through a sequence of system instructions that does not compare the output to the input. The reconstruction is lossy because it removes weak causal edges or rules while it preserves strong causal edges. The encoder preserves the strong causal edges even when it trades off some details about the FCM to make the text sound more natural.

Recent advances in agentic AI have led to systems capable of autonomous task execution and language-based reasoning, yet their spatial reasoning abilities remain limited and underexplored, largely constrained to symbolic and sequential processing. In contrast, human spatial intelligence, rooted in integrated multisensory perception, spatial memory, and cognitive maps, enables flexible, context-aware decision-making in unstructured environments. Therefore, bridging this gap is critical for advancing Agentic Spatial Intelligence toward better interaction with the physical 3D world. To this end, we first start from scrutinizing the spatial neural models as studied in computational neuroscience, and accordingly introduce a novel computational framework grounded in neuroscience principles. This framework maps core biological functions to six essential computation modules: bio-inspired multimodal sensing, multi-sensory integration, egocentric-allocentric conversion, an artificial cognitive map, spatial memory, and spatial reasoning. Together, these modules form a perspective landscape for agentic spatial reasoning capability across both virtual and physical environments. On top, we conduct a framework-guided analysis of recent methods, evaluating their relevance to each module and identifying critical gaps that hinder the development of more neuroscience-grounded spatial reasoning modules. We further examine emerging benchmarks and datasets and explore potential application domains ranging from virtual to embodied systems, such as robotics. Finally, we outline potential research directions, emphasizing the promising roadmap that can generalize spatial reasoning across dynamic or unstructured environments. We hope this work will benefit the research community with a neuroscience-grounded perspective and a structured pathway. Our project page can be found at Github.

Spatial cognition enables adaptive goal-directed behavior by constructing internal models of space. Robust biological systems consolidate spatial knowledge into three interconnected forms: \textit{landmarks} for salient cues, \textit{route knowledge} for movement trajectories, and \textit{survey knowledge} for map-like representations. While recent advances in multi-modal large language models (MLLMs) have enabled visual-language reasoning in embodied agents, these efforts lack structured spatial memory and instead operate reactively, limiting their generalization and adaptability in complex real-world environments. Here we present Brain-inspired Spatial Cognition for Navigation (BSC-Nav), a unified framework for constructing and leveraging structured spatial memory in embodied agents. BSC-Nav builds allocentric cognitive maps from egocentric trajectories and contextual cues, and dynamically retrieves spatial knowledge aligned with semantic goals. Integrated with powerful MLLMs, BSC-Nav achieves state-of-the-art efficacy and efficiency across diverse navigation tasks, demonstrates strong zero-shot generalization, and supports versatile embodied behaviors in the real physical world, offering a scalable and biologically grounded path toward general-purpose spatial intelligence.

Purposeful behavior is a hallmark of natural and artificial intelligence. Its acquisition is often believed to rely on world models, comprising both descriptive (what is) and prescriptive (what is desirable) aspects that identify and evaluate state of affairs in the world, respectively. Canonical computational accounts of purposeful behavior, such as reinforcement learning, posit distinct components of a world model comprising a state representation (descriptive aspect) and a reward function (prescriptive aspect). However, an alternative possibility, which has not yet been computationally formulated, is that these two aspects instead co-emerge interdependently from an agent's goal. Here, we describe a computational framework of goal-directed state representation in cognitive agents, in which the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of a world model co-emerge from agent-environment interaction sequences, or experiences. Drawing on Buddhist epistemology, we introduce a construct of goal-directed, or telic, states, defined as classes of goal-equivalent experience distributions. Telic states provide a parsimonious account of goal-directed learning in terms of the statistical divergence between behavioral policies and desirable experience features. We review empirical and theoretical literature supporting this novel perspective and discuss its potential to provide a unified account of behavioral, phenomenological and neural dimensions of purposeful behaviors across diverse substrates.