3-D head-direction cells in the bat presubiculum
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1
Weizmann Institute of Science, Department of Neurobiology, Israel
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2
Technion, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Israel
‘Head-direction cells’ are neurons that become active whenever the animal’s head points in a specific direction in space (like a compass), and they were suggested to be a key component of the mammalian navigation system. Surprisingly, directional tuning of rodent head-direction cells was previously identified only for the head azimuth (yaw), but not in conjunction with elevation (pitch), implying that head-direction cells in rodents are inherently 2-D spatially-tuned. We asked whether such head-direction tuning is a universal property of the mammalian brain, by recording from Egyptian fruit bats, mammals which are well adapted to 3-D behavior. To this end, we developed a custom 3-D tracking apparatus that allowed monitoring the three head-rotation angles: yaw, pitch and roll, in freely moving animals. We conducted single-unit tetrode recordings in bat presubiculum, yielding more than 300 neurons (32% of which were directional) from 4 bats, while the animals were actively crawling in an open-field arena, or were passively moved while being held upside-down. We found that head-direction cells in the bat were tuned to one or more of the three Euler rotation angles (yaw, pitch, and roll), with some neurons showing clear tuning to all the 3 angles – including pitch and roll. Population analysis showed that while the bat was held upside-down, a substantial fraction of neurons retained a clear directional firing, but surprisingly, the best tuning in yaw was often shifted by 180 degrees compared to the upright position, suggesting a torus-representation of 3-D head-direction. Taken together, our results demonstrate for the first time a 3-D head-direction mechanism in mammals, which may be part of a broader neuronal network supporting navigation in 3-D space.
Keywords:
BAT,
head direction,
head direction cells,
Hippocampus,
navigation,
Orientation,
presubiculum,
Rousettus aegyptiacus
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster (but consider for student poster award)
Topic:
Orientation and Navigation
Citation:
Finkelstein
A,
Derdikman
D,
Foerster
J,
Las
L and
Ulanovsky
N
(2012). 3-D head-direction cells in the bat presubiculum.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00105
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Received:
24 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Mr. Arseny Finkelstein, Weizmann Institute of Science, Department of Neurobiology, Rehovot, 76100, Israel, arsenyf@gmail.com