Entorhinal cortex and cognition.
Understanding the function of the entorhinal cortex (EC) has been an important subject over the years, not least because of its cortical intermediary to and from the hippocampus proper, and because of electrophysiological advances which have started to reveal the physiology in behaving animals. Clearly, a lot more needs to be done but is clear to date that EC is not merely a throughput station providing all hippocampal subfields with sensory information, but that processing within EC contributes significantly to attention, conditioning, event and spatial cognition possibly by compressing representations that overlap in time. These are transmitted to the hippocampus, where they are differentiated again and returned to EC. Preliminary evidence for such a role, but also their possible pitfalls are summarised.
Coutureau
Etienne
E
Centre de Neurosciences Intégratives et Cognitives, UMR 5228 CNRS, Universités de Bordeaux 1 & 2, Avenue des Facultés, 33405 Talence, France.
Di Scala
Georges
G
D000818:Animals; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D018728:Entorhinal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology