Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 14 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02394-x
Clark et al. demonstrate that heterogeneous data-driven models implement head-direction selectivity through the same dynamical principles as classical ring networks. In doing so, the authors reconcile biological realism with theoretical simplicity, unifying existing frameworks and broadening the space of connectivity structures to be searched in data.