John O’Keefe

54.5k total citations · 25 hit papers
101 papers, 36.5k citations indexed

About

John O’Keefe is a scholar working on Cognitive Neuroscience, Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience and Neurology. According to data from OpenAlex, John O’Keefe has authored 101 papers receiving a total of 36.5k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 89 papers in Cognitive Neuroscience, 71 papers in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience and 12 papers in Neurology. Recurrent topics in John O’Keefe's work include Memory and Neural Mechanisms (86 papers), Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research (68 papers) and Sleep and Wakefulness Research (19 papers). John O’Keefe is often cited by papers focused on Memory and Neural Mechanisms (86 papers), Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research (68 papers) and Sleep and Wakefulness Research (19 papers). John O’Keefe collaborates with scholars based in United Kingdom, United States and Canada. John O’Keefe's co-authors include Lynn Nadel, Neil Burgess, Jonathan O. Dostrovsky, Richard Morris, Paul Garrud, J. N. P. Rawlins, Eleanor A. Maguire, Michael Recce, Colin Lever and Carol A. Barnes and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In The Last Decade

John O’Keefe

100 papers receiving 35.4k citations

Hit Papers

The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map 1971 2026 1989 2007 1978 1982 1971 1993 2002 2.0k 4.0k 6.0k
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map
    1978 6.4k citations John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  2. Place navigation impaired in rats with hippocampal lesions
    1982 5.1k citations John O’Keefe et al. Nature profile →
  3. The hippocampus as a spatial map. Preliminary evidence from unit activity in the freely-moving rat
    1971 3.9k citations John O’Keefe et al. Brain Research profile →
  4. Phase relationship between hippocampal place units and the EEG theta rhythm
    1993 1.8k citations John O’Keefe, Michael Recce Hippocampus profile →
  5. The Human Hippocampus and Spatial and Episodic Memory
    2002 1.8k citations Neil Burgess, John O’Keefe et al. Neuron profile →
  6. Place units in the hippocampus of the freely moving rat
    1976 1.2k citations John O’Keefe profile →
  7. Knowing Where and Getting There: A Human Navigation Network
    1998 1.0k citations Neil Burgess, John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  8. The contributions of position, direction, and velocity to single unit activity in the hippocampus of freely-moving rats
    1983 806 citations John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  9. Geometric determinants of the place fields of hippocampal neurons
    1996 781 citations John O’Keefe, Neil Burgess Nature profile →
  10. Hippocampal place units in the freely moving rat: Why they fire where they fire
    1978 724 citations John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  11. Single unit activity in the rat hippocampus during a spatial memory task
    1987 603 citations John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  12. An oscillatory interference model of grid cell firing
    2007 493 citations Neil Burgess, Caswell Barry et al. Hippocampus profile →
  13. Boundary Vector Cells in the Subiculum of the Hippocampal Formation
    2009 467 citations Colin Lever, Stephen Burton et al. Journal of Neuroscience profile →
  14. The stereotrode: A new technique for simultaneous isolation of several single units in the central nervous system from multiple unit records
    1983 426 citations John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  15. Independent rate and temporal coding in hippocampal pyramidal cells
    2003 423 citations Neil Burgess, John O’Keefe et al. Nature profile →
  16. Attractor Dynamics in the Hippocampal Representation of the Local Environment
    2005 422 citations Thomas J. Wills, Colin Lever et al. profile →
  17. A Temporoparietal and Prefrontal Network for Retrieving the Spatial Context of Lifelike Events
    2001 416 citations Neil Burgess, John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  18. A review of the hippocampal place cells
    1979 413 citations John O’Keefe profile →
  19. Development of the Hippocampal Cognitive Map in Preweanling Rats
    2010 393 citations Thomas J. Wills, Francesca Cacucci et al. profile →
  20. Dual phase and rate coding in hippocampal place cells: Theoretical significance and relationship to entorhinal grid cells
    2005 379 citations John O’Keefe, Neil Burgess Hippocampus profile →
  21. Précis of O'Keefe & Nadel'sThe hippocampus as a cognitive map
    1979 360 citations John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  22. Space in the brain: how the hippocampal formation supports spatial cognition
    2013 319 citations Tom T. Hartley, Colin Lever et al. profile →
  23. Fornix lesions selectively abolish place learning in the rat
    1975 287 citations John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  24. Reversal of morphine and stimulus-produced analgesia by subtotal spinal cord lesions
    1977 250 citations John O’Keefe et al. profile →
  25. How vision and movement combine in the hippocampal place code
    2012 235 citations John A. King, Neil Burgess et al. profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
John O’Keefe United Kingdom 64 29.5k 20.7k 3.3k 3.1k 3.0k 101 36.5k
Edvard I Moser Norway 79 26.2k 0.9× 21.4k 1.0× 3.1k 0.9× 2.4k 0.8× 1.0k 0.3× 141 31.8k
Bruce L. McNaughton United States 88 32.0k 1.1× 25.4k 1.2× 3.5k 1.1× 2.2k 0.7× 743 0.2× 225 37.6k
Richard Morris United Kingdom 83 24.2k 0.8× 26.0k 1.3× 6.4k 1.9× 2.0k 0.7× 716 0.2× 284 45.0k
May‐Britt Moser Norway 71 22.7k 0.8× 18.6k 0.9× 2.6k 0.8× 2.2k 0.7× 861 0.3× 117 27.1k
Howard Eichenbaum United States 104 30.3k 1.0× 20.5k 1.0× 3.5k 1.1× 3.5k 1.1× 515 0.2× 253 37.5k
Lynn Nadel United States 67 17.6k 0.6× 8.6k 0.4× 1.5k 0.5× 1.2k 0.4× 1.8k 0.6× 194 24.2k
Larry R. Squire United States 119 44.9k 1.5× 19.8k 1.0× 4.1k 1.2× 2.2k 0.7× 510 0.2× 432 60.3k
John P. Aggleton United Kingdom 91 22.2k 0.8× 14.5k 0.7× 2.1k 0.6× 2.4k 0.8× 405 0.1× 311 28.7k
Carol A. Barnes United States 87 17.9k 0.6× 18.9k 0.9× 4.9k 1.5× 1.5k 0.5× 522 0.2× 254 31.4k
Ian Q. Whishaw Canada 83 13.0k 0.4× 11.2k 0.5× 3.4k 1.0× 1.7k 0.6× 274 0.1× 406 24.8k

Countries citing papers authored by John O’Keefe

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of John O’Keefe's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by John O’Keefe with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites John O’Keefe more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by John O’Keefe

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by John O’Keefe. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by John O’Keefe. The network helps show where John O’Keefe may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of John O’Keefe

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of John O’Keefe. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of John O’Keefe based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with John O’Keefe. John O’Keefe is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Kung, Justin, et al.. (2025). Patellofemoral positioning CT protocol has diagnostic ability to differentiate patellar maltracking phenotype. Journal of Orthopaedics. 67. 47–53. 1 indexed citations
2.
Lewis, Thomas, John O’Keefe, J. Benjamin Jackson, et al.. (2024). Minimally invasive Dorsal cheilectomy and Hallux metatarsophalangeal joint arthroscopy for the treatment of Hallux Rigidus. Foot and Ankle Surgery. 30(5). 400–405. 3 indexed citations
3.
Meyer, Arne F., John O’Keefe, & Jasper Poort. (2020). Two Distinct Types of Eye-Head Coupling in Freely Moving Mice. Current Biology. 30(11). 2116–2130.e6. 98 indexed citations
4.
Meyer, Arne F., Jasper Poort, John O’Keefe, Maneesh Sahani, & Jennifer F. Linden. (2018). A Head-Mounted Camera System Integrates Detailed Behavioral Monitoring with Multichannel Electrophysiology in Freely Moving Mice. Neuron. 100(1). 46–60.e7. 97 indexed citations
5.
Tan, Hui Min, Joshua P. Bassett, John O’Keefe, Francesca Cacucci, & Thomas J. Wills. (2015). The Development of the Head Direction System before Eye Opening in the Rat. Current Biology. 25(4). 479–483. 45 indexed citations
6.
Wells, Christine, Ali Jeewajee, Vincent Douchamps, et al.. (2013). Novelty and Anxiolytic Drugs Dissociate Two Components of Hippocampal Theta in Behaving Rats. Journal of Neuroscience. 33(20). 8650–8667. 76 indexed citations
7.
Burgess, Neil & John O’Keefe. (2011). Models of place and grid cell firing and theta rhythmicity. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 21(5). 734–744. 130 indexed citations
8.
Wells, Christine, Ali Jeewajee, Stephen Burton, et al.. (2009). Effects of anxiolytic drugs and environmental novelty support a two component model of hippocampal theta.. Social Neuroscience. 1 indexed citations
9.
Burgess, Neil, Caswell Barry, & John O’Keefe. (2007). An oscillatory interference model of grid cell firing. Hippocampus. 17(9). 801–812. 493 indexed citations breakdown →
10.
King, John A., Neil Burgess, Tom T. Hartley, Faraneh Vargha‐Khadem, & John O’Keefe. (2002). Human hippocampus and viewpoint dependence in spatial memory. Hippocampus. 12(6). 811–820. 220 indexed citations
11.
Lever, Colin, Thomas J. Wills, Francesca Cacucci, Neil Burgess, & John O’Keefe. (2002). Long-term plasticity in hippocampal place-cell representation of environmental geometry. Nature. 416(6876). 90–94. 332 indexed citations
12.
Burgess, Neil, et al.. (2000). Effect of unilateral temporal lobectomy on topographical and episodic memory in a large-scale virtual reality town.. UCL Discovery (University College London). 1 indexed citations
13.
Burgess, Neil, et al.. (1998). Hippocampus: spatial models. MIT Press eBooks. 468–472. 14 indexed citations
14.
Recce, Michael, et al.. (1998). The rhythmicity of cells of the medial septum/diagonal band of Broca in the awake freely moving rat: relationships with behaviour and hippocampal theta. European Journal of Neuroscience. 10(2). 464–477. 153 indexed citations
15.
Martin, Patrick & John O’Keefe. (1998). Place field dynamics and directionality in a spatial memory task. Brain Research. 783(2). 249–261. 7 indexed citations
16.
O’Keefe, John & Neil Burgess. (1996). Geometric determinants of the place fields of hippocampal neurons. Nature. 381(6581). 425–428. 781 indexed citations breakdown →
17.
Burgess, Neil & John O’Keefe. (1996). Cognitive graphs, resistive grids, and the hippocampal representation of space.. The Journal of General Physiology. 107(6). 659–662. 14 indexed citations
18.
O’Keefe, John & Michael Recce. (1993). Phase relationship between hippocampal place units and the EEG theta rhythm. Hippocampus. 3(3). 317–330. 1792 indexed citations breakdown →
19.
Burgess, Neil, John O’Keefe, & Michael Recce. (1992). Using hippocampal 'place cells' for navigation, exploiting phase coding. Neural Information Processing Systems. 5. 929–936. 25 indexed citations
20.
O’Keefe, John. (1990). Chapter 22 A computational theory of the hippocampal cognitive map. Progress in brain research. 301–312. 125 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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