title: Place-related neuronal activity in the monkey parahippocampal gyrus and hippocampal formation during virtual navigation.
abstract: Neuropsychological data in primates demonstrated a pivotal role of the hippocampal formation (HF) and parahippocampal gyrus (PH) in navigation and episodic memory. To investigate the role of HF and PH neurons in environmental scaling in primates, we recorded neuronal activities in the monkey HF and PH during virtual navigation (VN) and pointer translocation (PT) tasks. The monkeys had to navigate within three differently sized virtual spaces with the same spatial cues (VN task) or move a pointer on a screen (PT task) by manipulating a joystick to receive a reward. Of the 234 recorded neurons, 170 and 61 neurons displayed place-related activities in the VN and PT tasks, respectively. Significant differences were observed between the HF and PH neurons. The spatial similarity of place fields between the two different virtual spaces was lower in PH than in HF, while specificities of the neuronal responses to distal spatial cues were higher in PH than in HF. Spatial view information was predominately processed in posterior PH. The spatial scales (place field sizes) of the HF and PH neurons were reduced in the reduced virtual space, as shown in rodent place cells. These results suggest the complementary roles of HF (allocentric representation of landmarks) and PH (representation of the spatial layout of landmarks) in the recognition of a location during navigation.
authors.affiliation: System Emotional Science, Graduate School of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan; Department of Japanese Oriental Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoichi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Furuya
authors.forename: Jumpei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Matsumoto
authors.forename: Etsuro
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hori
authors.forename: Cyrus Villas
authors.initials: CV
authors.lastname: Boas
authors.forename: Anh Hai
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Tran
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shimada
authors.forename: Taketoshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ono
authors.forename: Hisao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nishijo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003463:Cues; D004594:Electrophysiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D008251:Macaca; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D020534:Parahippocampal Gyrus / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: hippocampus; monkey; parahippocampal gyrus; place cell