Wills Thomas J, Muessig Laurenz, Cacucci Francesca
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London, , London WC1E 6BT, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2013 Dec 23;369(1635):20130409. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2013.0409. Print 2014 Feb 5.
The role of the hippocampal formation in spatial cognition is thought to be supported by distinct classes of neurons whose firing is tuned to an organism's position and orientation in space. In this article, we review recent research focused on how and when this neural representation of space emerges during development: each class of spatially tuned neurons appears at a different age, and matures at a different rate, but all the main spatial responses tested so far are present by three weeks of age in the rat. We also summarize the development of spatial behaviour in the rat, describing how active exploration of space emerges during the third week of life, the first evidence of learning in formal tests of hippocampus-dependent spatial cognition is observed in the fourth week, whereas fully adult-like spatial cognitive abilities require another few weeks to be achieved. We argue that the development of spatially tuned neurons needs to be considered within the context of the development of spatial behaviour in order to achieve an integrated understanding of the emergence of hippocampal function and spatial cognition.
海马结构在空间认知中的作用被认为是由不同类型的神经元所支持的，这些神经元的放电与生物体在空间中的位置和方向相协调。在本文中，我们回顾了最近的研究，这些研究聚焦于空间的这种神经表征在发育过程中是如何以及何时出现的：每一类空间调谐神经元都在不同的年龄出现，并以不同的速度成熟，但到目前为止测试的所有主要空间反应在大鼠出生三周时就已出现。我们还总结了大鼠空间行为的发展，描述了在出生后第三周空间的主动探索是如何出现的，在第四周观察到在依赖海马体的空间认知的正式测试中学习的第一个证据，而完全类似成年动物的空间认知能力则需要再过几周才能实现。我们认为，为了对海马体功能和空间认知的出现有一个综合的理解，需要在空间行为发展的背景下考虑空间调谐神经元的发展。
