Nonlocal spatiotemporal representation in the hippocampus of freely flying bats

Navigation occurs through a continuum of space and time. The hippocampus is known to encode the immediate position of moving animals. However, active navigation, especially at high speeds, may require representing navigational information beyond the present moment. Using wireless electrophysiologica...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 373; no. 6551; pp. 242 - 247
Main Authors Dotson, Nicholas M, Yartsev, Michael M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States The American Association for the Advancement of Science 09.07.2021
Subjects
Animals
Bats
CA1 Region, Hippocampal - physiology
Chiroptera
Chiroptera - physiology
Coding
Flight, Animal
Hippocampus
Male
Navigation
Navigation behavior
Neural coding
Neurons - physiology
Place Cells - physiology
Position (location)
Representations
Spatial Ability
Spatial data
Spatial Navigation
Tracks (paths)
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Navigation occurs through a continuum of space and time. The hippocampus is known to encode the immediate position of moving animals. However, active navigation, especially at high speeds, may require representing navigational information beyond the present moment. Using wireless electrophysiological recordings in freely flying bats, we demonstrate that neural activity in area CA1 predominantly encodes nonlocal spatial information up to meters away from the bat's present position. This spatiotemporal representation extends both forward and backward in time, with an emphasis on future locations, and is found during both random exploration and goal-directed navigation. The representation of position thus extends along a continuum, with each moment containing information about past, present, and future, and may provide a key mechanism for navigating along self-selected and remembered paths.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
Author contributions: N.M.D. and M.M.Y. designed the research, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. N.M.D. performed the experiments.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.abg1278