Grid-cell modules remain coordinated when neural activity is dissociated from external sensory cues

The representation of an animal's position in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) is distributed across several modules of grid cells, each characterized by a distinct spatial scale. The population activity within each module is tightly coordinated and preserved across environments and behaviora...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuron (Cambridge, Mass.) Vol. 110; no. 11; p. 1843
Main Authors: Waaga, Torgeir, Agmon, Haggai, Normand, Valentin A, Nagelhus, Anne, Gardner, Richard J, Moser, May-Britt, Moser, Edvard I, Burak, Yoram
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States 01.06.2022
Subjects:
neural decoding
spatial coding
spatial memory
neural circuits
neural coding
entorhinal cortex
grid cells
population coding
ISSN:1097-4199, 1097-4199
Online Access:Get more information
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Summary:The representation of an animal's position in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) is distributed across several modules of grid cells, each characterized by a distinct spatial scale. The population activity within each module is tightly coordinated and preserved across environments and behavioral states. Little is known, however, about the coordination of activity patterns across modules. We analyzed the joint activity patterns of hundreds of grid cells simultaneously recorded in animals that were foraging either in the light, when sensory cues could stabilize the representation, or in darkness, when such stabilization was disrupted. We found that the states of different modules are tightly coordinated, even in darkness, when the internal representation of position within the MEC deviates substantially from the true position of the animal. These findings suggest that internal brain mechanisms dynamically coordinate the representation of position in different modules, ensuring that they jointly encode a coherent and smooth trajectory.
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ISSN:1097-4199
1097-4199
DOI:10.1016/j.neuron.2022.03.011