Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea.
Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, 02841, Republic of Korea.
Nat Commun. 2024 Aug 21;15(1):7156. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-51391-w.
Egocentric neural representations of environmental features, such as edges and vertices, are important for constructing a geometrically detailed egocentric cognitive map for goal-directed navigation and episodic memory. While egocentric neural representations of edges like egocentric boundary/border cells exist, those that selectively represent vertices egocentrically are yet unknown. Here we report that granular retrosplenial cortex (RSC) neurons in male mice generate spatial receptive fields exclusively near the vertices of environmental geometries during free exploration, termed vertex cells. Their spatial receptive fields occurred at a specific orientation and distance relative to the heading direction of mice, indicating egocentric vector coding of vertex. Removing physical boundaries defining the environmental geometry abolished the egocentric vector coding of vertex, and goal-directed navigation strengthened the egocentric vector coding at the goal-located vertex. Our findings suggest that egocentric vector coding of vertex by granular RSC neurons helps construct an egocentric cognitive map that guides goal-directed navigation.
自我中心的环境特征神经表示，例如边缘和顶点，对于构建用于目标导向导航和情景记忆的几何上详细的自我中心认知图至关重要。虽然存在像自我中心边界/边界细胞那样的自我中心边缘神经表示，但尚未发现专门以自我中心方式表示顶点的那些。在这里，我们报告说，雄性小鼠的颗粒后扣带回皮层（RSC）神经元在自由探索期间仅在环境几何形状的顶点附近产生空间感受野，称为顶点细胞。它们的空间感受野相对于小鼠的行进方向出现在特定的方向和距离上，表明顶点的自我中心向量编码。消除定义环境几何形状的物理边界会消除顶点的自我中心向量编码，并且目标导向导航会增强位于目标的顶点的自我中心向量编码。我们的发现表明，颗粒状 RSC 神经元的顶点的自我中心向量编码有助于构建指导目标导向导航的自我中心认知图。
