Place Cell Networks in Pre-weanling Rats Show Associative Memory Properties from the Onset of Exploratory Behavior.

ABSTRACT: Place cells are hippocampal pyramidal cells that are active when an animal visits a restricted area of the environment, and collectively their activity constitutes a neural representation of space. Place cell populations in the adult rat hippocampus display fundamental properties consistent with an associative memory network: the ability to 1) generate new and distinct spatial firing patterns when encountering novel spatial contexts or changes in sensory input ("remapping") and 2) reinstate previously stored firing patterns when encountering a familiar context, including on the basis of an incomplete/degraded set of sensory cues ("pattern completion"). To date, it is unknown when these spatial memory responses emerge during brain development. Here, we show that, from the age of first explo

SUBMITTER: Muessig L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4961032 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature