Spaces within spaces: rat parietal cortex neurons register position across three reference frames

Abstract

We recorded parietal cortex neurons as rats traversed squared spiral tracks. Spatial firing patterns distinguished the behaviorally identical track segments composing loops, yet recurred with increasing or decreasing amplitude across the five loops composing the full track. These results indicate that parietal cortex neurons simultaneously respond to spatial relationships in multiple external reference frames, a phenomenon that may reflect a neural mechanism for relating parts to a whole.

Decision and navigation in mouse parietal cortex

“…Our results resonate with the view that rodent PPC encodes combinations of spatial attributes (McNaughton et al, 1994;Nitz, 2006Nitz, , 2012Save andPoucet, 2000, 2009;Whitlock et al, 2012;Wilber et al, 2014). Specifically, we found that the activity of PPC neurons can be accurately predicted based on two extremely simple spatial measures: position of the animal along the corridor, and heading direction.…”

“…A complementary set of studies performed in rodents suggested an important role of PPC in spatial navigation (McNaughton et al, 1994;Nitz, 2006Nitz, , 2012Save andPoucet, 2000, 2009;Whitlock et al, 2012;Wilber et al, 2014). Rat PPC encodes combinations of spatial location and body movement (McNaughton et al, 1994;Nitz, 2006Nitz, , 2012Whitlock et al, 2012;Wilber et al, 2014).…”

“…Rat PPC encodes combinations of spatial location and body movement (McNaughton et al, 1994;Nitz, 2006Nitz, , 2012Whitlock et al, 2012;Wilber et al, 2014). Inactivating it, moreover, can impair navigation (Save andPoucet, 2000, 2009).…”

The role of rat posterior parietal cortex in coordinating spatial representations during place avoidance in dissociated reference frames on a continuously rotating arena (Carousel)

“…The first attempts to explain parietal function in terms of allocentric processing [8,9] need to be revised since both ablation experiments and electrophysiological recordings showed that the PPC is involved in both egocentric [10][11][12] and allocentric processing [2,[13][14][15]. Moreover, lesions of the PPC do not prevent the use of egocentric [16] or allocentric information [15] per se.…”

Embracing complexity: using the attribute model to elucidate the role for distributed neural networks underlying spatial memory processes

“…This process is disrupted by pari etal, but not hippocampus lesions 45 . Additionally, neuronal firing in the parietal cortex has been shown to fire specifically to topological information 46,47 . The fourth type of cue is the use of selfmotion cues to generate idiothetic cues.…”