Space and Memory (far) beyond the Hippocampus: Many Subcortical Structures also Support Cognitive Mapping and Mnemonic Processing

O’Mara, Shane M.; Aggleton, John Patrick

doi:10.31234/osf.io/eaj83

Cited by 12 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 74 publications

(88 reference statements)

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“…These diverse spatial tunings resemble those reported in the classical hippocampal-entorhinal network (Buzsaki and Moser, 2013) and identified recently in the rat primary somatosensory cortex (Long and Zhang, 2021). These recent and current findings challenge the traditional view, and suggests the cognitive maps are more widely represented in the brain than traditionally thought (O’Mara and Aggleton, 2019); Supplementary Fig. S28 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

A compact spatial map in V2 visual cortex

Long

Deng

Cai

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Vision plays a critical role in guiding spatial navigation. A traditional view of the visual cortex is to compute a world-centered map of visual space, and visual neurons exhibit diverse tunings to simple or complex visual features. The neural representation of spatio-visual map in the visual cortex is thought to be transformed from spatial modulation signals at the hippocampal-entorhinal system. Although visual thalamic and cortical neurons have been shown to be modulated by spatial signals during navigation, the exact source of spatially modulated neurons within the visual circuit has never been identified, and the neural correlate underpinning a visuospatial or spatio-visual map remains elusive. To search for direct visuospatial and visuodirectional signals, here we record in vivo extracellular spiking activity in the secondary visual cortex (V2) from freely foraging rats in a naturalistic environment. We identify that V2 neurons forms a complete spatio-visual map with a wide range of spatial tunings, which resembles the classical spatial map that includes the place, head-direction, border, grid and conjunctive cells reported in the hippocampal-entorhinal network. These spatially tuned V2 neurons display stable responses to external visual cues, and are robust with respect to non-spatial environmental changes. Spatially and directionally tuned V2 neuronal firing persists in darkness, suggesting that this spatio-visual map is not completely dependent on visual inputs. Identification of functionally distinct spatial cell types in visual cortex expands its classical role of information coding beyond a retinotopic map of the eye-centered world.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

A compact spatial map in V2 visual cortex

Long

Deng

Cai

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…While the hippocampus has been accepted for many years as the central site for place memory, other sites input to the hippocampus and store place information. The entorhinal cortex contains grid cells which connect to hippocampal place neurons, and the cingulate cortex and some subcortical structures are also implicated (Christensen et al, 2020;Nelson et al, 2015;O'Mara and Aggleton, 2019;Steullet et al, 2014). An alternative hypothesis for the role of the hippocampus is as an indexer of distributed storage .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perineuronal nets affect memory and learning after synapse withdrawal

Růžička

Dalecká²,

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Perineuronal nets (PNNs) enwrap mature neurons, playing a role in the control of plasticity and synapse dynamics. PNNs have been shown to have effects on memory formation, retention and extinction in a variety of animal models. It has been proposed that the cavities in PNNs which contain synapses can act as a memory store, which remains stable after events that cause synaptic withdrawal such as anoxia or hibernation. We examine this idea by monitoring positional memory before and after synaptic withdrawal caused by acute hibernation-like state (HLS). Animals lacking hippocampal PNNs due to enzymatic digestion by chondroitinase ABC or knockout of the PNN component aggrecan were compared with wild type controls. HLS-induced synapse withdrawal caused a memory deficit, but not to the level of naive animals and not worsened by PNN attenuation. After HLS, animals lacking PNNs showed faster relearning. Absence of PNNs affected the restoration of inhibitory and excitatory synapses on PNN-bearing neurons. The results support a role for hippocampal PNNs in learning, but not in long-term memory storage.

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“…Thus, we have brain systems and subsystems tuned to interpersonal synchronisation and pacing of walking movements 50 , 51 ; wayfinding and cognitive mapping 52 , 36 ; environmental vigilance and threat detection 53 ; goal orientation and achievement 54 ; shared social attention and gesture 55 ; tolerating uncertainty 56 ; optimism bias and risk-taking 57 ; memory and motivation 58 , 59 , 60 ; imagination 61 ; and more. Walking with others, on this view, amplifies these processes through shared storytelling and interpersonal synchronisation during the movement of the group toward a common, and perhaps imagined, destination.…”

Section: Human Walking Is Socialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solvitur Ambulando: Why Humans Walk Extraordinary Distances Together Serving Abstract Ends

O’Mara¹

2020

Preprint

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Human walking is a socially-embedded and shaped biological adaptation: it frees our hands, make our minds mobile and is deeply health-promoting. Yet, today, physical inactivity is an unsolved, major public health problem. However, globally, tens of millions of people annually undertake ancient, significant, and enduring traditions of physiologically- and psychologically-arduous walks (pilgrimages) of days-to-weeks extent. Pilgrim walking is celebrated, discussed, and analysed in important literary, historical, and religious works as a defining human activity: one requiring weighty commitments of time, action, and belief, as well as community support. Paradoxically, human walking is most studied on treadmills, not ‘in the wild’. While mechanistically vital, treadmill studies of walking cannot, in principle, address why humans walk extraordinary distances together for abstract ends, or provide the means to bring much-needed physical activity back into our everyday lives.Pilgrim walkers provide a rich ‘living laboratory’ bridging literary, historical, and religious inquiries, to progressive theoretical and empirical investigations of human walking serving abstract ends. Pilgrims offer advantages for causal investigations: they vary demographically, and they undertake arduous journeys on precisely-mapped routes of tracked, titrated, doses and durations on terrain of varying difficulty, allowing controlled investigations from molecular to cultural levels of analysis. Here, using a novel, naturalistic, framework, we examine how pilgrim walking might shape personal, social, and transcendental processes, revealing potential mechanisms supporting the socially-embedded body and brain in motion, and beyond, to how pilgrim walking might offer some potential solutions for physical inactivity in society at large.

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Space and Memory (far) beyond the Hippocampus: Many Subcortical Structures also Support Cognitive Mapping and Mnemonic Processing

Cited by 12 publications

References 74 publications

A compact spatial map in V2 visual cortex

A compact spatial map in V2 visual cortex

Perineuronal nets affect memory and learning after synapse withdrawal

Solvitur Ambulando: Why Humans Walk Extraordinary Distances Together Serving Abstract Ends

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