Hippocampal place codes are gated by behavioral engagement.

ABSTRACT: As animals explore an environment, the hippocampus is thought to automatically form and maintain a place code by combining sensory and self-motion signals. Instead, we observed an extensive degradation of the place code when mice voluntarily disengaged from a virtual navigation task, remarkably even as they continued to traverse the identical environment. Internal states, therefore, can strongly gate spatial maps and reorganize hippocampal activity even without sensory and self-motion changes.

SUBMITTER: Pettit NL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9076532 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature