The Preferred Directions of Conjunctive Grid X Head Direction Cells in the Medial Entorhinal Cortex Are Periodically Organized

Alexander Thomas Keinath

PLOS ONE, 2016, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-11

Abstract: The discovery of speed-modulated grid, head direction, and conjunctive grid x head direction cells in the medial entorhinal cortex has led to the hypothesis that path integration, the updating of one’s spatial representation based on movement, may be carried out within this region. This hypothesis has been formalized by many computational models, including a class known as attractor network models. While many of these models propose specific mechanisms by which path integration might occur, predictions of these specific mechanisms have not been tested. Here I derive and test a key prediction of one attractor network path integration mechanism. Specifically, I first demonstrate that this mechanism predicts a periodic distribution of conjunctive cell preferred directions in order to minimize drift. Next, I test whether conjunctive cell preferred directions are in fact periodically organized. Results indicate that conjunctive cells are preferentially tuned to increments of 36°, consistent with drift minimization in this path integration mechanism. By contrast, no periodicity was observed in the preferred directions of either pure grid or pure head direction cells. These results provide the first neural evidence of a nonuniform structure in the directional preferences of any head direction representation found in the brain.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0152041 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 52041&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0152041

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152041

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().