As someone who studied Neuroscience in college, I remember this paper and some other examples showing just how different computational neural networks are from real neurons. It's difficult for me to believe that professional researchers could really believe a NN is an accurate model of the real deal.

The paper also does not have any reference to a study or paper that explicitly states that a neural network is a good model for grid cells. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) So I am left wondering why this direction was chosen.

Maybe it's a little cynical, but this topic seems to have been chosen (at least in part) to produce a splashy headline. Or in other words, to give the Stanford and MIT PR engine something to print.

This is the sort of obvious thing we all knew to be true. Why people with access to lab animals and a fully stocked microbiology lab needed to prove it (again) I do not understand.