Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published August 3, 2016 | Published + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Spatial tuning and brain state account for dorsal hippocampal CA1 activity in a non-spatial learning task

Abstract

The hippocampus is a brain area crucial for episodic memory in humans. In contrast, studies in rodents have highlighted its role in spatial learning, supported by the discovery of place cells. Efforts to reconcile these views have found neurons in the rodent hippocampus that respond to non-spatial events but have not unequivocally dissociated the spatial and non-spatial influences on these cells. To disentangle these influences, we trained freely moving rats in trace eyeblink conditioning, a hippocampally dependent task in which the animal learns to blink in response to a tone. We show that dorsal CA1 pyramidal neurons are all place cells, and do not respond to the tone when the animal is moving. When the animal is inactive, the apparent tone-evoked responses reflect an arousal-mediated resumption of place-specific firing. These results suggest that one of the main output stages of the hippocampus transmits only spatial information, even in this non-spatial task.

Additional Information

© 2016, Shan et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited. Received: 10 January 2016, Accepted: 18 July 2016, Published: 03 August 2016. The authors declare that no competing interests exist. Funding Larry L. Hillblom Foundation Maria Papadopoulou National Science Foundation IOS-1146871 Athanassios G Siapas National Institutes of Health 1DP1OD008255 Athanassios G Siapas G Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation Athanassios G Siapas Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Athanassios G Siapas National Institutes of Health 5DP1MH099907 Athanassios G Siapas The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication. Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (#1465) of the California Institute of Technology. All surgeries were performed under aseptic conditions and under isoflurane anesthesia.

Attached Files

Published - e14321-download.pdf

Supplemental Material - elife14321-figures.pdf

Files

e14321-download.pdf
Files (5.5 MB)
Name Size Download all
md5:d168a0666779e49c5df25770c4d21279
1.4 MB Preview Download
md5:598e2d8388a846151d53c86caec2adc8
4.1 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023