How environment geometry affects grid cell symmetry and what we can learn from it |
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Authors: | Julija Krupic Marius Bauza Stephen Burton Colin Lever John O'Keefe |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK;2.Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK;3.Institute of Behaviour Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1H 0AP, UK;4.Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK |
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Abstract: | The mammalian hippocampal formation provides neuronal representations of environmental location but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. The majority of cells in medial entorhinal cortex and parasubiculum show spatially periodic firing patterns. Grid cells exhibit hexagonal symmetry and form an important subset of this more general class. Occasional changes between hexagonal and non-hexagonal firing patterns imply a common underlying mechanism. Importantly, the symmetrical properties are strongly affected by the geometry of the environment. Here, we introduce a field–boundary interaction model where we demonstrate that the grid cell pattern can be formed from competing place-like and boundary inputs. We show that the modelling results can accurately capture our current experimental observations. |
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Keywords: | grid cell spatially periodic cells boundary cell border cell hippocampus symmetry |
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