Hosted by the Wellcome Neural Dynamics PhD Programme
A challenge in both modern and historic neuroscience has been achieving an understanding of neuron circuits, and determining the computational and organizational principles that underlie these circuits. Deeper understanding of the organization of brain circuits and cell types, including in the hippocampus, is required for advances in behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, as well as for understanding principles governing brain development and evolution. In this talk, I will discuss a new method to analyze the spatial clustering of active neurons in the hippocampus. I will present data in which I use calcium imaging and a rewarded navigation task to record from 100 s of place cells in the CA1 of freely moving rats. I will then demonstrating, using statistical techniques developed for and in widespread use in geographic mapping studies, global Moran's I, and local Moran's I, that cells that code for similar spatial locations tend to form small spatial clusters. I will present evidence that this clustering is not the result of artifacts from calcium imaging, and show that these clusters are primarily formed by cells that have place fields around previously rewarded locations. I will go on to show that, although cells with similar place fields tend to form clusters, there is no obvious topographic mapping of environmental location onto the hippocampus, such as seen in the visual cortex. Insights into hippocampal organization, as in this study, can elucidate mechanisms underlying motivational behaviors, spatial navigation, and memory formation.
Join via Zoom: https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/94138286231?pwd=MlRURE1SWjR6OTZCR1Fnak9QbGxhUT09, Meeting ID: 941 3828 6231, Passcode: 277162