Internally organized mechanisms of the head direction sense

Peter Christian Petersen

doi:10.1038/nn.3968

Internally organized mechanisms of the head direction sense

97 Citationer (Scopus)

Abstract

The head-direction (HD) system functions as a compass, with member neurons robustly increasing their firing rates when the animal's head points in a specific direction. HD neurons may be driven by peripheral sensors or, as computational models postulate, internally generated (attractor) mechanisms. We addressed the contributions of stimulus-driven and internally generated activity by recording ensembles of HD neurons in the antero-dorsal thalamic nucleus and the post-subiculum of mice by comparing their activity in various brain states. The temporal correlation structure of HD neurons was preserved during sleep, characterized by a 60°-wide correlated neuronal firing (activity packet), both within and across these two brain structures. During rapid eye movement sleep, the spontaneous drift of the activity packet was similar to that observed during waking and accelerated tenfold during slow-wave sleep. These findings demonstrate that peripheral inputs impinge on an internally organized network, which provides amplification and enhanced precision of the HD signal.

Originalsprog	Engelsk
Tidsskrift	Nature Neuroscience
Vol/bind	18
Sider (fra-til)	569-575
Antal sider	7
ISSN	1097-6256
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3968
Status	Udgivet - 28 apr. 2015
Udgivet eksternt	Ja

Adgang til dokumentet

10.1038/nn.3968

Citationsformater

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