scholarly journals Representation of Borders and Swimming Kinematics in the Brain of Freely-Navigating Fish

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehud Vinepinsky ◽  
Lear Cohen ◽  
Shay Perchik ◽  
Ohad Ben-Shahar ◽  
Opher Donchin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Region ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Water Tank ◽  
Border Cells ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Swimming Kinematics ◽  
The Brain

AbstractLike most animals, the survival of fish depends crucially on navigation in space. This capacity has been documented in numerous behavioral studies that have revealed navigation strategies and the sensory modalities used for navigation. However, virtually nothing is known about how freely swimming fish represent space and locomotion in the brain to enable successful navigation. Using a novel wireless neural recording system, we measured the activity of single neurons in the goldfish lateral pallium, a brain region known to be involved in spatial memory and navigation, while the fish swam freely in a two-dimensional water tank. Four cell types were identified: border cells, head direction cells, speed cells and conjunction head direction with speed. Border cells were active when the fish was near the boundary of the environment. Head direction cells were shown to encode head direction. Speed cells only encoded the absolute speed independent of direction suggestive of an odometry signal. Finally, the conjunction of head direction with speed cells represented the velocity of the fish. This study thus sheds light on how information related to navigation is represented in the brain of swimming fish, and addresses the fundamental question of the neural basis of navigation in this diverse group of vertebrates. The similarities between our observations in fish and earlier findings in mammals may indicate that the networks controlling navigation in vertebrate originate from an ancient circuit common across vertebrates.SummaryNavigation is a fundamental behavioral capacity facilitating survival in many animal species. Fish is one lineage where navigation has been explored behaviorally, but it remains unclear how freely swimming fish represent space and locomotion in the brain. This is a key open question in our understanding of navigation in fish and more generally in understanding the evolutionary origin of the brain’s navigation system. To address this issue, we recorded neuronal signals from the brain of freely swimming goldfish and successfully identified representations of border and swimming kinematics in a brain region known to be associated with navigation. Our findings thus provide a glimpse into the building blocks of the neural representation underlying fish navigation. The similarity of the representation in fish with that of mammals may be key evidence supporting a preserved ancient mechanism across brain evolution.

scholarly journals Representation of edges, head direction, and swimming kinematics in the brain of freely-navigating fish

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehud Vinepinsky ◽  
Lear Cohen ◽  
Shay Perchik ◽  
Ohad Ben-Shahar ◽  
Opher Donchin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Swimming Velocity ◽  
Water Tank ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Fish Swimming ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Neural Recording System ◽  
Swimming Kinematics ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Navigation Strategies

Abstract Like most animals, the survival of fish depends on navigation in space. This capacity has been documented in behavioral studies that have revealed navigation strategies. However, little is known about how freely swimming fish represent space and locomotion in the brain to enable successful navigation. Using a wireless neural recording system, we measured the activity of single neurons in the goldfish lateral pallium, a brain region known to be involved in spatial memory and navigation, while the fish swam freely in a two-dimensional water tank. We found that cells in the lateral pallium of the goldfish encode the edges of the environment, the fish head direction, the fish swimming speed, and the fish swimming velocity-vector. This study sheds light on how information related to navigation is represented in the brain of fish and addresses the fundamental question of the neural basis of navigation in this group of vertebrates.

scholarly journals A spatial map in the somatosensory cortex

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyang Long ◽  
Sheng-Jia Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Spatial Representation ◽  
Hippocampal Formation ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Border Cells ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
Boundary Vector ◽  
The Brain

AbstractSpatially selective firing in the forms of place cells, grid cells, boundary vector/border cells and head direction cells are the basic building blocks of a canonical spatial navigation system centered on the hippocampal-entorhinal complex. While head direction cells can be found throughout the brain, spatial tuning outside the hippocampal formation are often non-specific or conjunctive to other representations such as a reward. Although the precise mechanism of spatially selective activities is not understood, various studies show sensory inputs (particularly vision) heavily modulate spatial representation in the hippocampal-entorhinal circuit. To better understand the contribution from other sensory inputs in shaping spatial representation in the brain, we recorded from the primary somatosensory cortex in foraging rats. To our surprise, we were able to identify the full complement of spatial activity patterns reported in the hippocampal-entorhinal network, namely, place cells, head direction cells, boundary vector/border cells, grid cells and conjunctive cells. These newly identified somatosensory spatial cell types form a spatial map outside the hippocampal formation and support the hypothesis that location information is necessary for body representation in the somatosensory cortex, and may be analogous to spatially tuned representations in the motor cortex relating to the movement of body parts. Our findings are transformative in our understanding of how spatial information is used and utilized in the brain, as well as functional operations of the somatosensory cortex in the context of rehabilitation with brain-machine interfaces.

scholarly journals Wireless logging of extracellular neuronal activity in the telencephalon of free-swimming salmonids

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susumu Takahashi ◽  
Takumi Hombe ◽  
Riku Takahashi ◽  
Kaoru Ide ◽  
Shinichiro Okamoto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Environmental Cues ◽  
Fish Movement ◽  
Water Tank ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Free Swimming ◽  
Rodent Brain ◽  
River Migration ◽  
Spike Waveforms ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Background Salmonids return to the river where they were born in a phenomenon known as mother-river migration. The underpinning of migration has been extensively examined, particularly regarding the behavioral correlations of external environmental cues such as the scent of the mother-river and geomagnetic compass. However, neuronal underpinning remains elusive, as there have been no biologging techniques suited to monitor neuronal activity in the brain of large free-swimming fish. In this study, we developed a wireless biologging system to record extracellular neuronal activity in the brains of free-swimming salmonids. Results Using this system, we recorded multiple neuronal activities from the telencephalon of trout swimming in a rectangular water tank. As proof of principle, we examined the activity statistics for extracellular spike waveforms and timing. We found cells firing maximally in response to a specific head direction, similar to the head direction cells found in the rodent brain. The results of our study suggest that the recorded signals originate from neurons. Conclusions We anticipate that our biologging system will facilitate a more detailed investigation into the neural underpinning of fish movement using internally generated information, including responses to external cues.

scholarly journals Medial Orbitofrontal Cortex Is Associated with Fatigue Sensation

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seiki Tajima ◽  
Shigeyuki Yamamoto ◽  
Masaaki Tanaka ◽  
Yosky Kataoka ◽  
Masao Iwase ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Positron Emission Tomography ◽  
Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽  
Brain Region ◽  
Statistical Parametric Mapping ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Mapping Method ◽  
Emission Tomography ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
The Brain

Fatigue is an indispensable bioalarm to avoid exhaustive state caused by overwork or stresses. It is necessary to elucidate the neural mechanism of fatigue sensation for managing fatigue properly. We performedH2O  15positron emission tomography scans to indicate neural activations while subjects were performing 35-min fatigue-inducing task trials twice. During the positron emission tomography experiment, subjects performed advanced trail-making tests, touching the target circles in sequence located on the display of a touch-panel screen. In order to identify the brain regions associated with fatigue sensation, correlation analysis was performed using statistical parametric mapping method. The brain region exhibiting a positive correlation in activity with subjective sensation of fatigue, measured immediately after each positron emission tomography scan, was located in medial orbitofrontal cortex (Brodmann's area 10/11). Hence, the medial orbitofrontal cortex is a brain region associated with mental fatigue sensation. Our findings provide a new perspective on the neural basis of fatigue.

scholarly journals Functional connectivity of the entorhinal–hippocampal space circuit

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1635) ◽  
pp. 20120516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheng-Jia Zhang ◽  
Jing Ye ◽  
Jonathan J. Couey ◽  
Menno Witter ◽  
Edvard I. Moser ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Entorhinal Cortex ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Projection Neurons ◽  
Border Cells ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Grid Cells ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Cell Groups

The mammalian space circuit is known to contain several functionally specialized cell types, such as place cells in the hippocampus and grid cells, head-direction cells and border cells in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC). The interaction between the entorhinal and hippocampal spatial representations is poorly understood, however. We have developed an optogenetic strategy to identify functionally defined cell types in the MEC that project directly to the hippocampus. By expressing channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) selectively in the hippocampus-projecting subset of entorhinal projection neurons, we were able to use light-evoked discharge as an instrument to determine whether specific entorhinal cell groups—such as grid cells, border cells and head-direction cells—have direct hippocampal projections. Photoinduced firing was observed at fixed minimal latencies in all functional cell categories, with grid cells as the most abundant hippocampus-projecting spatial cell type. We discuss how photoexcitation experiments can be used to distinguish the subset of hippocampus-projecting entorhinal neurons from neurons that are activated indirectly through the network. The functional breadth of entorhinal input implied by this analysis opens up the potential for rich dynamic interactions between place cells in the hippocampus and different functional cell types in the entorhinal cortex (EC).

Arithmetic in the Child and Adult Brain

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinod Menon
Keyword(s):  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Memory Systems ◽  
Adult Brain ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Mature Adult ◽  
The Brain

This review examines brain and cognitive processes involved in arithmetic. I take a distinctly developmental perspective because neither the cognitive nor the brain processes involved in arithmetic can be adequately understood outside the framework of how developmental processes unfold. I review four basic neurocognitive processes involved in arithmetic, highlighting (1) the role of core dorsal parietal and ventral temporal-occipital cortex systems that form basic building blocks from which number form and quantity representations are constructed in the brain; (2) procedural and working memory systems anchored in the basal ganglia and frontoparietal circuits, which create short-term representations that allow manipulation of multiple discrete quantities over several seconds; (3) episodic and semantic memory systems anchored in the medial and lateral temporal cortex that play an important role in long-term memory formation and generalization beyond individual problem attributes; and (4) prefrontal cortex control processes that guide allocation of attention resources and retrieval of facts from memory in the service of goal-directed problem solving. Next I examine arithmetic in the developing brain, first focusing on studies comparing arithmetic in children and adults, and then on studies examining development in children during critical stages of skill acquisition. I highlight neurodevelopmental models that go beyond parietal cortex regions involved in number processing, and demonstrate that brain systems and circuits in the developing child brain are clearly not the same as those seen in more mature adult brains sculpted by years of learning. The implications of these findings for a more comprehensive view of the neural basis of arithmetic in both children and adults are discussed.

scholarly journals A Neural Representation of Sequential States Within an Instructed Task

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (5) ◽  
pp. 2831-2849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Campos ◽  
Boris Breznen ◽  
Richard A. Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Internal Representation ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Lateral Intraparietal Area ◽  
State Dependent ◽  
Sensorimotor Transformations ◽  
Saccade Task ◽  
Anticipatory Activity ◽  
Supplementary Eye Fields ◽  
The Brain

In the study of the neural basis of sensorimotor transformations, it has become clear that the brain does not always wait to sense external events and afterward select the appropriate responses. If there are predictable regularities in the environment, the brain begins to anticipate the timing of instructional cues and the signals to execute a response, revealing an internal representation of the sequential behavioral states of the task being performed. To investigate neural mechanisms that could represent the sequential states of a task, we recorded neural activity from two oculomotor structures implicated in behavioral timing—the supplementary eye fields (SEF) and the lateral intraparietal area (LIP)—while rhesus monkeys performed a memory-guided saccade task. The neurons of the SEF were found to collectively encode the progression of the task with individual neurons predicting and/or detecting states or transitions between states. LIP neurons, while also encoding information about the current temporal interval, were limited with respect to SEF neurons in two ways. First, LIP neurons tended to be active when the monkey was planning a saccade but not in the precue or intertrial intervals, whereas SEF neurons tended to have activity modulation in all intervals. Second, the LIP neurons were more likely to be spatially tuned than SEF neurons. SEF neurons also show anticipatory activity. The state-selective and anticipatory responses of SEF neurons support two complementary models of behavioral timing, state dependent and accumulator models, and suggest that each model describes a contribution SEF makes to timing at different temporal resolutions.

scholarly journals Influence of cognitive control on semantic representation

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waitsang Keung ◽  
Daniel Osherson ◽  
Jonathan D. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Attentional Modulation ◽  
Task Instructions ◽  
Similarity Relationships ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe neural representation of an object can change depending on its context. For instance, a horse may be more similar to a bear than to a dog in terms of size, but more similar to a dog in terms of domesticity. We used behavioral measures of similarity together with representational similarity analysis and functional connectivity of fMRI data in humans to reveal how the neural representation of semantic knowledge can change to match the current goal demand. Here we present evidence that objects similar to each other in a given context are also represented more similarly in the brain and that these similarity relationships are modulated by context specific activations in frontal areas.Significance statementThe judgment of similarity between two objects can differ in different contexts. Here we report a study that tested the hypothesis that brain areas associated with task context and cognitive control modulate semantic representations of objects in a task-specific way.We first demonstrate that task instructions impact how objects are represented in the brain. We then show that the expression of these representations is correlated with activity in regions of frontal cortex widely thought to represent context, attention and control.In addition, we introduce spatial variance as a novel index of representational expression and attentional modulation. This promises to lay the groundwork for more exacting studies of the neural basis of semantics, as well as the dynamics of attentional modulation.

scholarly journals A novel somatosensory spatial navigation system outside the hippocampal formation

Cell Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyang Long ◽  
Sheng-Jia Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Spatial Representation ◽  
Hippocampal Formation ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Head Direction Cells ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
Boundary Vector ◽  
The Brain

AbstractSpatially selective firing of place cells, grid cells, boundary vector/border cells and head direction cells constitutes the basic building blocks of a canonical spatial navigation system centered on the hippocampal-entorhinal complex. While head direction cells can be found throughout the brain, spatial tuning outside the hippocampal formation is often non-specific or conjunctive to other representations such as a reward. Although the precise mechanism of spatially selective firing activity is not understood, various studies show sensory inputs, particularly vision, heavily modulate spatial representation in the hippocampal-entorhinal circuit. To better understand the contribution of other sensory inputs in shaping spatial representation in the brain, we performed recording from the primary somatosensory cortex in foraging rats. To our surprise, we were able to detect the full complement of spatially selective firing patterns similar to that reported in the hippocampal-entorhinal network, namely, place cells, head direction cells, boundary vector/border cells, grid cells and conjunctive cells, in the somatosensory cortex. These newly identified somatosensory spatial cells form a spatial map outside the hippocampal formation and support the hypothesis that location information modulates body representation in the somatosensory cortex. Our findings provide transformative insights into our understanding of how spatial information is processed and integrated in the brain, as well as functional operations of the somatosensory cortex in the context of rehabilitation with brain-machine interfaces.

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