The mammalian mind is thought to provide psychological representations of the spatial setting, often called cognitive maps, that assist people and animals navigate their environment. A subpopulation of neurons within the CA1 space of the hippocampus, that are known as place cells (PCs), have been discovered to grow to be energetic when animals go to particular locations or places of their setting.
The activation of those cells was beforehand linked to the encoding of space- and goal-related data, which was predicted to assist the creation of cognitive maps. Whereas quite a few previous research explored the perform of PCs and their contribution to the creation of cognitive maps, the function of expertise in shaping the creation of those maps has not but been elucidated.
Researchers at Baylor Faculty of Medication lately shed new mild on the mechanisms by which expertise may affect the encoding of knowledge by PCs. Their findings, revealed in Nature Neuroscience, counsel that experiences produce an adjustment of synaptic enter within the mouse mind, which in flip impacts the exercise of PCs, enabling the manufacturing of versatile cognitive maps.
“Hippocampal CA1 PCs encode each space- and goal-referenced data to assist a cognitive map,” wrote Fish Kunxun Qian, Yiding Li and Jeffrey C. Magee of their paper. “The mechanism of this referencing and the function of expertise stay poorly understood. Right here we longitudinally recorded PC exercise whereas head-fixed mice carried out a spatial studying process on a treadmill.”
Primarily, Qian, Li and Magee recorded the exercise of PCs within the hippocampus, particularly within the CA1 space, inside the mind of twenty-two grownup mice as they carried out a spatial studying process. The recordings had been collected utilizing two methods: two-photon imaging and in vivo intracellular recording by way of an implanted electrode.
“In a well-recognized setting, the CA1 illustration consisted of PCs that had been referenced to both particular spatial places or a reward aim in roughly equal proportions,” wrote Qian, Li and Magee. “Nevertheless, the CA1 illustration grew to become predominately goal-referenced upon publicity to a novel setting, as space-referenced PCs adaptively switched reference frames.”
The recordings collected by this staff of researchers counsel that when mice begin navigating a brand new setting, the representations produced by place cells within the CA1 area of their hippocampus grow to be more and more goal-oriented. This implies that the animals’ expertise influences the creation of cognitive maps, which make sure that these maps finest help them in finishing spatial duties and reaching their targets.
“Intracellular membrane potential recordings revealed that particular person CA1 neurons concurrently obtained each space- and goal-referenced synaptic inputs, and the ratio of those inputs was correlated with particular person PC referencing,” wrote Qian, Li and Magee. “Moreover, behavioral timescale synaptic plasticity formed PC referencing. Collectively, these outcomes counsel that experience-dependent adjustment of synaptic enter shapes PC referencing to assist a versatile cognitive map.”
Total, the current findings gathered by Qian, Li and Magee counsel that in mice, the adjustment of cognitive maps primarily based on expertise can a minimum of partly be defined by the dynamic reorganization of synaptic inputs. Future research may additional check this speculation and validate the staff’s findings, enhancing the current understanding of the neural processes supporting experience-based spatial studying and navigation.
Extra data:
Fish Kunxun Qian et al, Mechanisms of experience-dependent place-cell referencing in hippocampal space CA1, Nature Neuroscience (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01930-5.
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