Computational role of hippocampal skip connections

Determine the computational role of skip connections observed in the hippocampal formation, specifically pathways in which information flows directly from CA3 to CA1 bypassing CA2, to clarify how such anatomical motifs contribute to neural computation in memory and context-dependent behavior.

Background

In the Discussion, the authors relate their proposed associative memory model (AMICL) and residual attention value streams in Transformers to neurobiological architectures, highlighting that skip-like pathways exist in the hippocampal formation. They note that some information flows directly from CA3 to CA1 while often bypassing CA2, and that CA2 is implicated in specialized tasks and context switching.

This motivates a neuroscience open question about what computational functions such skip connections serve in hippocampal circuits, and whether understanding their role could inform biologically-inspired architectural choices in artificial models.