| Autor: |
Redman WT; Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Dynamical Neuroscience, University of California, Santa Barbara.; Intelligent Systems Center, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab., Acosta-Mendoza S; Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Dynamical Neuroscience, University of California, Santa Barbara., Wei XX; Department of Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin.; Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin.; Center for Perceptual Systems, The University of Texas at Austin.; Center for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin., Goard MJ; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara.; Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara.; Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California Santa Barbara. |
| Abstrakt: |
Although grid cells are one of the most well studied functional classes of neurons in the mammalian brain, the assumption that there is a single grid orientation and spacing per grid module has not been carefully tested. We investigate and analyze a recent large-scale recording of medial entorhinal cortex to characterize the presence and degree of heterogeneity of grid properties within individual modules. We find evidence for small, but robust, variability and hypothesize that this property of the grid code could enhance the ability of encoding local spatial information. Performing analysis on synthetic populations of grid cells, where we have complete control over the amount heterogeneity in grid properties, we demonstrate that variability, of a similar magnitude to the analyzed data, leads to significantly decreased decoding error, even when restricted to activity from a single module. Our results highlight how the heterogeneity of the neural response properties may benefit coding and opens new directions for theoretical and experimental analysis of grid cells. |
