Theta-phase precession in place and grid cells of the mouse
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1
University of Heidelberg, Germany
The hippocampus and the medial entorhinal cortex (mEC) are both involved in representing the location of an animal in space. In the hippocampus, place cells increase their firing rate when the animal is at a specific location (i.e., the field of the cell). In the mEC, grid cells have many fields of high firing, and these fields form a grid pattern of equilateral triangles. It has been proposed that place and grid cells also use phase coding to represent spatial information. As the animal runs through a cell's field, the theta phase of spikes changes systematically from the ascending to the descending phase. This phenomenon, called theta-phase precession, has been studied intensively in rats but its neuronal mechanisms remain poorly understood. These mechanisms could potentially be revealed using the arsenal of molecular approaches available in mice. We therefore tested whether place and grid cells also express theta-phase precession in mice. Dual-site tetrode recordings from the hippocampus and the mEC were performed in mice running in open-fields and on a zigzag track. As the mice run on the track, a significant proportion of both place and grid cells express clear theta-phase precession. This result paves the way to the analysis of the cellular mechanisms responsible for theta-phase precession using molecular manipulations in mice.
Conference:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting, Rhodes Island, Greece, 13 Sep - 18 Sep, 2009.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster presentations
Citation:
Allen
K,
Jaschonek
H and
Monyer
H
(2009). Theta-phase precession in place and grid cells of the mouse.
Conference Abstract:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.08.2009.09.082
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Received:
05 Jun 2009;
Published Online:
05 Jun 2009.
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Correspondence:
Kevin Allen, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, allen@uni-heidelberg.de