Spatial tuning and brain state account for dorsal hippocampal CA1 activity in a non-spatial learning task

The hippocampus is a brain area crucial for episodic memory in humans. In contrast, studies in rodents have highlighted its role in spatial learning, supported by the discovery of place cells. Efforts to reconcile these views have found neurons in the rodent hippocampus that respond to non-spatial e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2016-08, Vol.5
Main Authors: Shan, Kevin Q, Lubenov, Evgueniy V, Papadopoulou, Maria, Siapas, Athanassios G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Arousal
Blinking
CA1 Region, Hippocampal - physiology
dorsal CA1
Estimates
Eyelid conditioning
Hippocampus
Hippocampus (Brain)
Learning
Locomotion
Memory
Neuroscience
nonspatial learning
Physiological aspects
Psychological aspects
Pyramidal cells
Pyramidal Cells - physiology
Rats
Rodentia
Rodents
Spatial discrimination learning
Spatial memory
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Description
Summary:The hippocampus is a brain area crucial for episodic memory in humans. In contrast, studies in rodents have highlighted its role in spatial learning, supported by the discovery of place cells. Efforts to reconcile these views have found neurons in the rodent hippocampus that respond to non-spatial events but have not unequivocally dissociated the spatial and non-spatial influences on these cells. To disentangle these influences, we trained freely moving rats in trace eyeblink conditioning, a hippocampally dependent task in which the animal learns to blink in response to a tone. We show that dorsal CA1 pyramidal neurons are all place cells, and do not respond to the tone when the animal is moving. When the animal is inactive, the apparent tone-evoked responses reflect an arousal-mediated resumption of place-specific firing. These results suggest that one of the main output stages of the hippocampus transmits only spatial information, even in this non-spatial task.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.14321