Multi-scale place fields provide a predictive basis for hierarchical control

Hippocampal place cells typically exhibit unimodal spatial selectivity in small enclosures, but express multiple, irregularly spaced fields in environments of naturalistic scale. However, existing predictive-map theories of the hippocampus do not scale well to large environments and do not account for these heterogeneous place field characteristics. Here, we introduce the factorised hierarchical successor representation (fHSR), a predictive map that supports hierarchical control using subgoal-directed subroutines. We show that the fHSR allows efficient generalisation across tasks, scaling favourably with environmental size, and it reproduces key statistical and topological characteristics of multi-scale CA1 place cell activity in rats and bats. Analyses of experimental data further confirmed a novel prediction of the fHSR: population firing rates exhibit spatial periodicity with a characteristic wavelength independent of environmental size. These results identify the integration of hierarchical control and predictive representations as a normative principle that unifies efficient navigation with the spatial organisation of hippocampal activity.