title: Properties of place cell firing after damage to the visual cortex.
abstract: Hippocampal place cells were recorded while rats with lesions of the striate visual cortex foraged for food pellets in a cylindrical arena. Compared to control rats, rats with striate damage had place cells whose firing was less well organized in space, according to a measurement of spatial coherence. More importantly, the spatial location of firing fields in rats with striate lesions was poorly controlled by three-dimensional objects, unlike the fields of either normal sighted rats or early blind rats. These findings suggest a possible contribution of the striate visual cortex to the selection of cues used for anchoring place cell firing fields in space.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neurobiology and Cognition, CNRS, 31 chemin Joseph-Aiguier, 13402 Marseille cedex 20, France.
authors.forename: Vietminh
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Paz-Villagràn
authors.forename: Pierre-Pascal
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Lenck-Santini
authors.forename: Etienne
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Save
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Poucet
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*