Abstract
Discrete populations of brain cells signal heading direction, rather like a compass. These 'head direction' cells are largely confined to a closely-connected network of sites. We describe, for the first time, a population of head direction cells in nucleus reuniens of the thalamus in the freely-moving rat. This novel subcortical head direction signal potentially modulates the hippocampal CA fields directly and, thus, informs spatial processing and memory.
Highlights
Nucleus reuniens (NRe), one of the largest midline thalamic nuclei, receives extensive limbic inputs and provides a bridge linking the hippocampus with medial prefrontal cortex (McKenna and Vertes, 2004; Vertes, 2006; Prasad and Chudasama, 2013)
We have found an unexpected population of NRe cells signalling head direction (HD) in the horizontal plane, independent of location within the test arena
Changing visual conditions from light to dark to light does not affect HD cells Lighting conditions were systematically varied across foraging sessions for 10 cells
Summary
Nucleus reuniens (NRe), one of the largest midline thalamic nuclei, receives extensive limbic inputs and provides a bridge linking the hippocampus (especially area CA1) with medial prefrontal cortex (McKenna and Vertes, 2004; Vertes, 2006; Prasad and Chudasama, 2013). We have found an unexpected population of NRe cells signalling head direction (HD) in the horizontal plane, independent of location within the test arena. These cells resemble HD cells in the anterodorsal and anteroventral thalamic nuclei (Shinder and Taube, 2011; Tsanov et al, 2011), the lateral mammillary nucleus (Taube, 2007), and certain parahippocampal regions (Cassel et al, 2013). NRe cells maintain head directionality during light–dark transitions, and in environments of different shape. These cells establish directionality rapidly upon first entering an environment. Reveal a novel head direction signal potentially modulating the hippocampal CA fields and, hippocampal spatial processing (Brandon et al, 2013)
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