Correction: Neunuebel et al., Conflicts between Local and Global Spatial Frameworks Dissociate Neural Representations of the Lateral and Medial Entorhinal Cortex

AbstractIn response to environmental changes, the medial entorhinal cortex alters its single-cell firing properties. This flexibility in neural coding is hypothesized to support navigation and memory by dividing sensory experience into unique contextual episodes. However, it is unknown how the entorhinal circuit transitions between different representations, particularly when sensory information is not delineated into discrete contexts. Here, we describe spontaneous and abrupt transitions between multiple spatial maps of an unchanging task and environment. These remapping events were synchronized across hundreds of medial entorhinal neurons and correlated with changes in running speed. While remapping altered spatial coding in individual neurons, we show that features of the environment were statistically preserved at the population-level, enabling simple decoding strategies. These findings provoke a reconsideration of how medial entorhinal cortex dynamically represents space and broadly suggest a remarkable capacity for higher-order cortical circuits to rapidly and substantially reorganize their neural representations.

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Egocentric coding of external items in the lateral entorhinal cortex

Science ◽

10.1126/science.aau4940 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 362 (6417) ◽

pp. 945-949 ◽

Cited By ~ 75

Author(s):

Cheng Wang ◽

Xiaojing Chen ◽

Heekyung Lee ◽

Sachin S. Deshmukh ◽

D. Yoganarasimha ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Episodic Memory ◽

Spatial Cognition ◽

Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Essential Role ◽

Reference Frames ◽

Single Neurons ◽

Spatial Coding ◽

Medial Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Conscious Recollection

Episodic memory, the conscious recollection of past events, is typically experienced from a first-person (egocentric) perspective. The hippocampus plays an essential role in episodic memory and spatial cognition. Although the allocentric nature of hippocampal spatial coding is well understood, little is known about whether the hippocampus receives egocentric information about external items. We recorded in rats the activity of single neurons from the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) and medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), the two major inputs to the hippocampus. Many LEC neurons showed tuning for egocentric bearing of external items, whereas MEC cells tended to represent allocentric bearing. These results demonstrate a fundamental dissociation between the reference frames of LEC and MEC neural representations.

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Representation of Distance and Direction of Nearby Boundaries in Retrosplenial Cortex

10.1101/807453 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Joeri B.G. van Wijngaarden ◽

Susanne S. Babl ◽

Hiroshi T. Ito

Keyword(s):

Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Retrosplenial Cortex ◽

Identified Neurons ◽

Border Cells ◽

Spatial Coding ◽

Medial Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Neural Representations ◽

The Brain ◽

Shed Light

AbstractBorders and edges are salient and behaviourally relevant features for navigating the environment. The brain forms dedicated neural representations of environmental boundaries, which are assumed to serve as a reference for spatial coding. Here we expand this border coding network to include the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) in which we identified neurons that increase their firing near all boundaries of an arena. RSC border cells specifically encode walls, but not objects, and maintain their tuning in the absence of direct sensory detection. Unlike border cells in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), RSC border cells are sensitive to the animal’s direction to nearby walls located contralateral to the recorded hemisphere. Pharmacogenetic inactivation of MEC led to a disruption of RSC border coding, but not vice versa, indicating network directionality. Together these data shed light on how information about distance and direction of boundaries is generated in the brain for guiding navigation behaviour.

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Conflicts between Local and Global Spatial Frameworks Dissociate Neural Representations of the Lateral and Medial Entorhinal Cortex

Journal of Neuroscience ◽

10.1523/jneurosci.0946-13.2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 33 (22) ◽

pp. 9246-9258 ◽

Cited By ~ 68

Author(s):

J. P. Neunuebel ◽

D. Yoganarasimha ◽

G. Rao ◽

J. J. Knierim

Keyword(s):

Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Medial Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Neural Representations

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Object-vector coding in the medial entorhinal cortex

10.1101/286286 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Øyvind Arne Høydal ◽

Emilie Ranheim Skytøen ◽

May-Britt Moser ◽

Edvard I. Moser

Keyword(s):

Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Head Direction ◽

Test Arena ◽

Medial Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Vector Coding ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Object Locations ◽

Novel Objects ◽

Freely Moving ◽

Representations Of Space

SummaryMammals use distances and directions from local objects to calculate trajectories during navigation but how such vectorial operations are implemented in neural representations of space has not been determined. Here we show in freely moving mice that a population of neurons in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) responds specifically when the animal is at a given distance and direction from a spatially confined object. These ‘object-vector cells’ are tuned similarly to a spectrum of discrete objects, irrespective of their location in the test arena. The vector relationships are expressed from the outset in novel environments with novel objects. Object-vector cells are distinct from grid cells, which use a distal reference frame, but the cells exhibit some mixed selectivity with head-direction and border cells. Collectively, these observations show that object locations are integrated in metric representations of self-location, with specific subsets of MEC neurons encoding vector relationships to individual objects.

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Mouse entorhinal cortex encodes a diverse repertoire of self-motion signals

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-20936-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Caitlin S. Mallory ◽

Kiah Hardcastle ◽

Malcolm G. Campbell ◽

Alexander Attinger ◽

Isabel I. C. Low ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Medial Temporal Lobe ◽

Visual Cues ◽

Neural Circuits ◽

Sensory Cues ◽

Medial Entorhinal Cortex ◽

Representation Of Space ◽

Self Motion ◽

Information Streams ◽

Representations Of Space

AbstractNeural circuits generate representations of the external world from multiple information streams. The navigation system provides an exceptional lens through which we may gain insights about how such computations are implemented. Neural circuits in the medial temporal lobe construct a map-like representation of space that supports navigation. This computation integrates multiple sensory cues, and, in addition, is thought to require cues related to the individual’s movement through the environment. Here, we identify multiple self-motion signals, related to the position and velocity of the head and eyes, encoded by neurons in a key node of the navigation circuitry of mice, the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC). The representation of these signals is highly integrated with other cues in individual neurons. Such information could be used to compute the allocentric location of landmarks from visual cues and to generate internal representations of space.

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