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Temporal coding in the hippocampus

Year: 2019
Type: dissertation
Abstract: There is a large body of evidence that the hippocampus is involved in temporal \naspects of memory. It remains unclear what neural processes within the hippocampus \ncontribute to this ability. The following experiments aim to quantify and qualify these \nneural processes while rats perform temporal memory tasks. First we examined the firing \nof neurons in the hippocampus while rats compared a current series of odors to a learned \nsequence of odors. We found evidence of neural correlates which might represent \nwhether a stimulus odor was in the correct ordinal sequence or not. Next we examined \nthe delay intervals in between learned sequences of events with the goal of identifying the \norigin of “time cells” in the hippocampus. We used a delayed alternating T-maze task \nthat our lab has used before to record time cells in area CA1 of the hippocampus. We \nfound time cells in CA3, one of the major inputs to CA1 and demonstrated that they \nbehave in many ways like place cells previously observed in these two regions. Time \ncells had previously been reported to occur only when an animal is engaged in a task with \nmemory load. We demonstrated that memory load isn't necessary to observe time cells. \nOur observations of the similarities between place and time cells led us to conjecture that \nthe hippocampus might process space and time similarly. In a final study I examined time \nvii \ncell firing properties with an aim at constraining models of time cells. We defined time \ncells in several ways including a new methodology that is promising as a future unbiased \nselection criteria. All of our findings help further elucidate several different ways that \nneural coding in the hippocampus contributes to temporal processing.
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3003368252
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