Anisotropic encoding of three-dimensional space by place cells and grid cells

Robin Hayman (1) , Madeleine Verriotis (1) , Aleks Jovalekic (1) , Andre Fenton (1) , Kathryn J. Jeffery (1)

1 Department of Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences

The subjective sense of space results in part from the combined activity of place cells, in the hippocampus, and grid cells in posterior cortical regions such as entorhinal cortex and pre/parasubiculum. In horizontal planar environments, place cells provide focal positional information while grid cells supply odometric (distance-measuring) information. How these cells operate in three dimensions is unknown, even though the real world is three-dimensional. The present study explored this issue using two different kinds of apparatus, a climbing wall (the "pegboard") and a helix. Place and grid cell firing fields had normal horizontal characteristics but were elongated vertically, with grid fields forming stripes. It appears that grid cell odometry (and by implication path integration) is impaired/absent in the vertical domain, at least when the animal itself remains horizontal. These findings suggest that the mammalian encoding of three-dimensional space is anisotropic.

Mots clés: Neurophysiology; Cognition; Behaviour

Domaines: Neurosciences [q-bio.NC]

Robin Hayman, Madeleine Verriotis, Aleks Jovalekic, Andre Fenton, Kathryn J. Jeffery. Anisotropic encoding of three-dimensional space by place cells and grid cells. Nature Neuroscience, 2011, ⟨10.1038/nn.2892⟩. ⟨hal-00667125⟩