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The Journal of Neuroscience, January 17, 2007, 27(3):472-482; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2864-06.2007

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Goal-Related Activity in Hippocampal Place Cells

Vincent Hok,^1 * Pierre-Pascal Lenck-Santini,^2 * Sébastien Roux,³ Etienne Save,¹ Robert U. Muller,⁴ and Bruno Poucet¹

¹Laboratory of Neurobiology and Cognition, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)–Université de Provence, 13331 Marseille Cedex 03, France, ²Neuroscience Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire 03756, ³Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives de la Méditerranée, CNRS–Université de la Méditerranée, 13402 Marseille Cedex 20, France, and ⁴Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York 11203

Correspondence should be addressed to Bruno Poucet, Laboratory of Neurobiology and Cognition, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Université de Provence, Centre Saint Charles, Case C, 3 Place Victor Hugo, 13331 Marseille Cedex 03, France. Email: bpoucet{at}up.univ-mrs.fr

Place cells are hippocampal neurons whose discharge is strongly related to a rat's location in its environment. The existence of place cells has led to the proposal that they are part of an integrated neural system dedicated to spatial navigation, an idea supported by the discovery of strong relationships between place cell activity and spatial problem solving. To further understand such relationships, we examined the discharge of place cells recorded while rats solved a place navigation task. We report that, in addition to having widely distributed firing fields, place cells also discharge selectively while the hungry rat waits in an unmarked goal location to release a food pellet. Such firing is not duplicated in other locations outside the main firing field even when the rat's behavior is constrained to be extremely similar to the behavior at the goal. We therefore propose that place cells provide both a geometric representation of the current environment and a reflection of the rat's expectancy that it is located correctly at the goal. This on-line feedback about a critical aspect of navigational performance is proposed to be signaled by the synchronous activity of the large fraction of place cells active at the goal. In combination with other (prefrontal) cells that provide coarse encoding of goal location, hippocampal place cells may therefore participate in a neural network allowing the rat to plan accurate trajectories in space.

Key words: hippocampus; unit recordings; place cells; spatial processing; goal coding; rat

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Received March 28, 2006; revised Dec. 6, 2006; accepted Dec. 7, 2006.

Correspondence should be addressed to Bruno Poucet, Laboratory of Neurobiology and Cognition, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Université de Provence, Centre Saint Charles, Case C, 3 Place Victor Hugo, 13331 Marseille Cedex 03, France. Email: bpoucet{at}up.univ-mrs.fr

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. J. Siegel, J. P. Neunuebel, and J. J. Knierim Dominance of the Proximal Coordinate Frame in Determining the Locations of Hippocampal Place Cell Activity During Navigation J Neurophysiol, January 1, 2008; 99(1): 60 - 76. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Johnson and A. D. Redish Neural Ensembles in CA3 Transiently Encode Paths Forward of the Animal at a Decision Point J. Neurosci., November 7, 2007; 27(45): 12176 - 12189. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. A. Ainge, M. Tamosiunaite, F. Woergoetter, and P. A. Dudchenko Hippocampal CA1 Place Cells Encode Intended Destination on a Maze with Multiple Choice Points J. Neurosci., September 5, 2007; 27(36): 9769 - 9779. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R. E. Clark, N. J. Broadbent, and L. R. Squire The Hippocampus and Spatial Memory: Findings with a Novel Modification of the Water Maze J. Neurosci., June 20, 2007; 27(25): 6647 - 6654. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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For goal scoring, the right place and the right time are matters of context

Giorgio A. Ascoli, et al.

J. Neurosci. Online, 8 Feb 2007 [Full text]

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