title: Place-related neural responses in the monkey hippocampal formation in a virtual space.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: System Emotional Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Sugitani 2630, Toyama 930-0194, Japan.
authors.forename: Etsuro
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hori
authors.forename: Yoichi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nishio
authors.forename: Kenichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kazui
authors.forename: Katsumi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Umeno
authors.forename: Eiichi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tabuchi
authors.forename: Kazuo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sasaki
authors.forename: Shunro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Endo
authors.forename: Taketoshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ono
authors.forename: Hisao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nishijo
mesh_terms: 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