Environmental Geometry Aligns the Hippocampal Map during Spatial Reorientation.

ABSTRACT: When a navigator's internal sense of direction is disrupted, she must rely on external cues to regain her bearings, a process termed spatial reorientation. Extensive research has demonstrated that the geometric shape of the environment exerts powerful control over reorientation behavior, but the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are not well understood. Whereas some theories claim that geometry controls behavior through an allocentric mechanism potentially tied to the hippocampus, others postulate that disoriented navigators reach their goals by using an egocentric view-matching strategy. To resolve this debate, we characterized hippocampal representations during reorientation. We first recorded from CA1 cells as disoriented mice foraged in chambers of various shap

SUBMITTER: Keinath AT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5296211 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature