Place-related neural responses in the monkey hippocampal formation in a virtual space.
Place cells in the rodent hippocampal formation (HF) are suggested to be the neural substrate for a spatial cognitive map. This specific spatial property of the place cells are regulated by both allothetic cues (i.e., intramaze local and distal cues) as well as idiothetic sensory inputs; the context signaled by the distal cues allows local and idiothetic cues to be employed for spatial tuning within the maze. To investigate the effects of distal cues on place-related activity of primate HF neurons, 228 neurons were recorded from the monkey HF during virtual navigation in a similar situation to a rodent water maze, in which distal cues were important to locate the animal's position. A subset of 72 neurons displayed place-related activity in one or more virtual spaces. Most place-related responses disappeared or changed their spatial tuning (i.e., remapping) when the arrangements of the distal cues were altered/moved in the virtual spaces. These specific features of the monkey HF might underlie neurophysiological bases of human episodic memory.
Hori
Etsuro
E
System Emotional Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Sugitani 2630, Toyama 930-0194, Japan.
Nishio
Yoichi
Y
Kazui
Kenichi
K
Umeno
Katsumi
K
Tabuchi
Eiichi
E
Sasaki
Kazuo
K
Endo
Shunro
S
Ono
Taketoshi
T
Nishijo
Hisao
H
D000818:Animals; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D008251:Macaca; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D014584:User-Computer Interface