Omer David B, Las Liora, Ulanovsky Nachum
Department of Brain Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Nat Neurosci. 2023 Feb;26(2):285-294. doi: 10.1038/s41593-022-01226-y. Epub 2022 Dec 30.
Navigation and episodic memory depend critically on representing temporal sequences. Hippocampal 'time cells' form temporal sequences, but it is unknown whether they represent context-dependent experience or time per se. Here we report on time cells in bat hippocampal area CA1, which, surprisingly, formed two distinct populations. One population of time cells generated different temporal sequences when the bat hung at different locations, thus conjunctively encoding spatial context and time-'contextual time cells'. A second population exhibited similar preferred times across different spatial contexts, thus purely encoding elapsed time. When examining neural responses after the landing moment of another bat, in a social imitation task, we found time cells that encoded temporal sequences aligned to the other's landing. We propose that these diverse time codes may support the perception of interval timing, episodic memory and temporal coordination between self and others.
导航和情景记忆严重依赖于对时间序列的表征。海马体中的“时间细胞”形成时间序列，但它们是代表依赖于上下文的经验还是时间本身尚不清楚。在这里，我们报告蝙蝠海马体CA1区中的时间细胞，令人惊讶的是，它们形成了两个不同的群体。当蝙蝠悬挂在不同位置时，一组时间细胞会产生不同的时间序列，从而联合编码空间上下文和时间——“上下文时间细胞”。另一组在不同空间背景下表现出相似的偏好时间，因此纯粹编码经过的时间。在一项社会模仿任务中，当检查另一只蝙蝠着陆时刻后的神经反应时，我们发现了编码与另一只蝙蝠着陆对齐的时间序列的时间细胞。我们提出，这些不同的时间编码可能支持对间隔计时、情景记忆以及自我与他人之间的时间协调的感知。
