Qian Fish Kunxun, Li Yiding, Magee Jeffrey C
Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2025 Apr 1. doi: 10.1038/s41593-025-01930-5.
Hippocampal CA1 place cells (PCs) encode both space- and goal-referenced information to support a cognitive map. The mechanism of this referencing and the role of experience remain poorly understood. Here we longitudinally recorded PC activity while head-fixed mice performed a spatial learning task on a treadmill. In a familiar environment, the CA1 representation consisted of PCs that were referenced to either specific spatial locations or a reward goal in approximately equal proportions; however, the CA1 representation became predominately goal-referenced upon exposure to a novel environment, as space-referenced PCs adaptively switched reference frames. Intracellular membrane potential recordings revealed that individual CA1 neurons simultaneously received both space- and goal-referenced synaptic inputs, and the ratio of these inputs was correlated with individual PC referencing. Furthermore, behavioral timescale synaptic plasticity shaped PC referencing. Together, these results suggest that experience-dependent adjustment of synaptic input shapes PC referencing to support a flexible cognitive map.
海马体CA1区位置细胞（PCs）对空间信息和目标参考信息进行编码，以支持认知地图。这种参考机制以及经验的作用仍知之甚少。在这里，我们纵向记录了头部固定的小鼠在跑步机上执行空间学习任务时PC的活动。在熟悉的环境中，CA1区的表征由大约等量的参考特定空间位置或奖励目标的PC组成；然而，当暴露于新环境时，CA1区的表征主要变为目标参考，因为空间参考的PC会自适应地切换参考框架。细胞内膜电位记录显示，单个CA1神经元同时接收空间参考和目标参考的突触输入，这些输入的比例与单个PC的参考相关。此外，行为时间尺度的突触可塑性塑造了PC的参考。总之，这些结果表明，突触输入的经验依赖性调整塑造了PC的参考，以支持灵活的认知地图。
