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Class 16 - Grid Cells

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15 views34 pages

Class 16 - Grid Cells

Uploaded by

Chandni Rana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Intro to Neural Circuits

Class 16: Grid Cells & Entorhinal-


Hippocampal Circuits
Hippocampal Place Cells

• Fire in fixed regions of space on the track, no


matter how fast the rat runs
• Blind rats have place cells
• Sequences of place cells are seen as rats run in
the same location on a running wheel
• Thus place cells are, at least partially, the
result of internally generated sequences…
Rat runs 20 cm/s
Rat runs faster, but same time delay between groups of place cells
Rat runs faster - faster transitions between groups of place cells
What kind of cells are place
cells?
Excitatory or Inhibitory?
RS, IB, FS or LTS?
Electrophysiological Description of a
CA1 place cell
• CA1 place cells are:
– Pyramidal cells
– Excitatory (release glutamate)
– Bursty (tend to fire a burst of spikes in each theta
cycle as a rat moves through this cell’s place field)
In vivo, whole cell recording from a CA1
pyramidal cell of a Behaving Rat (Lee et
al., 2006)
A single
intracellular
burst from a
CA1 place
cell
How do place cells come to be?

What anatomical inputs carry


relevant spatial information to CA1?
Ahmed & Mehta, 2009
Entorhinal-Hippocampal Anatomy in 2-D

Names of pathways:

PP = perforant path
TA = temporoammonic
SC = Schaffer collateral
MF = Mossy Fibers

Nakashiba et al., 2008


Medial EC

Lateral EC

Ventral-posterior view of rat brain showing both Medial and


Lateral Entorhinal Cortex (Fyhn et al, 2004)
Topographically
organized projections
from MEC to
hippocampus:

Dorsolateral MEC to
dorsal hippocampus

Ventromedial MEC to
ventral hippocampus

Figure from Fyhn et al,


2004
Kerr, Agster, Furtak, Burwell, 2007
Grid Cells are found in the
Entorhinal Cortex
Hafting 2005 paper
Please take 5 minutes to discuss
which of the following properties
are similar/identical for grid cells
recorded on the same electrode:
Spacing between grid fields
Grid Orientation (Direction)
Spatial Phase
Figure 1

Note the scalebar


difference for the
autocorrelation.
This is because the
autocorrelation
goes both forward
and backwards (you
won’t be tested on
this)
Figure 2
Spacing and grid field size increases at
more ventral locations
Dorsalmost recording
location

Ventralmost recording
location
Figure 3
Grid cell firing in novel environments
Grid cells are not the only
fascinating cells in the MEC
Border Cells – what do they do?

Cell 1:

Cell 2:

Cell 2
again:
Cells in Layer II of MEC
• Contains both Stellate cells & Pyramidal cells
• Both types are excitatory
• Most stellate cells in L2 of MEC are border
cells
• Most pyramidal cells in L2 of MEC are grid
cells
• Impressive functional/morphological
correlations!
In Layer III of MEC, you also find
grid cells but fewer of them…
Layer III has fewer grid cells, but also has
head-direction cells

Sargolini et al., 2006


Layer III also has conjunctive cells – same
cell is both a grid cell and a head-direction
cell

Sargolini et al, 2006


So how does a place cell encode
spatial memories?
Still an open question but MEC projections
to the hippocampus help to shape CA1 cells’
activity and hence help to shape our spatial
and episodic memories…
Solstad 2006

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