Assessing the possible modulation of grid cell spacing by average running speed
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1
Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Centre for the Biology of Memory, Norway
The dorsal part of the Medial Entorhinal Cortex of rats hosts grid cells, which present periodic spatial firing fields arranged in a hexagonal fashion [1, 2]. Since its discovery, several theoretical proposals have attempted to explain this remarkable spatial pattern (see a review in [3]). One of these models [4] proposes that the formation of the pattern depends on self organization of sensory input rather than path integration. As a result of this process, it predicts that the average speed with which a rat explores a given environment during the learning stage modulates the spacing between the resulting fields, an observation that would be difficult to conciliate with a path integration origin of the spatial map. To test this hypothesis, we have trained rats to run at different average speeds on two linear tracks situated in different rooms. In one of them food is alternatively placed at opposite ends of the track, so that the rats learn to run fast from one extreme to the other. In the other room, food in the form of powder is scattered across the track, so that the rats tend to walk slowly while sniffing and eating. Very preliminary results seem to indicate that on the track with fast running the grid cells develop fields with larger spacing than in the one with slow behavior, in line with the prediction from the model.
References
1. Fyhn et al. 2004. Science 305,1258-1264.
2. Hafting et al. 2005. Nature 436,801-806.
3. Moser et al. 2008. Annual Reviews of Neuroscience 31,69-89.
4. Kropff et al. 2008. Hippocampus 18,1256-1269.
Conference:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting, Rhodes Island, Greece, 13 Sep - 18 Sep, 2009.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster presentations
Citation:
Kropff
E,
Edvard
MI and
May-Britt
M
(2009). Assessing the possible modulation of grid cell spacing by average running speed.
Conference Abstract:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.08.2009.09.204
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Received:
10 Jun 2009;
Published Online:
10 Jun 2009.
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Correspondence:
Emilio Kropff, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Centre for the Biology of Memory, Trondheim, Norway, emilio.kropff@ntnu.no