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Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 12, 1945-1963, Copyright © 1992 by Society for Neuroscience
The positional firing properties of medial entorhinal neurons: description and comparison with hippocampal place cells
GJ Quirk, RU Muller, JL Kubie and JB Ranck Jr
Department of Physiology, State University of New York Health Science Center, Brooklyn 11203.
Hippocampal place cells in the rat are so named because they fire
predominantly within circumscribed regions of the environment. This study
describes the positional firing properties of cells afferent to hippocampal
place cells, in superficial layers of medial entorhinal cortex (MEC). MEC
cells in these layers project to the hippocampus via the perforant path
and, along with lateral entorhinal cells, are the sole route by which
cortical information reaches the hippocampus. MEC cells were recorded from
rats while they retrieved pellets in simple geometric enclosures. The
behavioral task as well as procedures for data collection and analysis were
the same used in previous studies on hippocampal place cells (e.g., Muller
et al., 1987) in order to facilitate the direct comparison between
hippocampal and entorhinal cells. The firing patterns of MEC cells show
pronounced locational variations reminiscent of hippocampal firing fields,
but with a lower signal-to-noise ratio. While noisy, MEC firing patterns
are stationary in time as evidenced by their reproducibility, and the
improvement in spatial signal with long-duration recordings. Furthermore,
MEC firing patterns are not due to variations in the rat's behavior. Taken
together, these data show that the positional firing variations in MEC
cells are due to the location-specificity of MEC cells. These and
additional data lead us to conclude that location-specific information
exists prior to the hippocampus. MEC cells are similar to hippocampal place
cells in that their firing can be controlled by the rotation of a visual
cue (a white card attached to the wall), but is not disrupted by removing
the cue. An important difference between hippocampal and entorhinal cells
was seen when the shape of the recording chamber was changed. In the
transition from a cylinder to an equal-area square of similar appearance,
MEC firing patterns topologically transformed (or "stretched") while those
of hippocampal place cells changed to an unpredictable pattern. We conclude
that the positional firing of MEC cells is more "sensory bound" than
hippocampal cells, and that the ability to discriminate different
environments, while present in the hippocampus, is not yet present in its
input from MEC.
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