2017 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Neural network organization of the spatial map
| Project/Area Number |
15K13157
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| Research Institution | University of Tsukuba |
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Principal Investigator |
Pavlides C 筑波大学, 人間系, 教授 (50712808)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
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| Keywords | hippocampus / memory / place cells / episodic memory / immediate early genes |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The proposed studies were aimed at determining hippocampal functional neuronal organization in non-spatial memory tasks, using Zif268 as a marker of neuronal activity. We had previously shown that in animals exposed to a restricted part of an environment, pyramidal cells were organized in clusters in both the CA1 and CA3 hippocampal fields. A similar cluster-type organization was observed in animals performing a non-spatial sequential order, odor discrimination task (Cho, et al, 2014a, b). During the past year, we undertook an experiment to determine functional organization using contextual fear conditioning. We observed that similar to the previous paradigms, hippocampal cells were organized in clusters of active cells next to non-active cells. All of these tasks are hippocampus dependent suggesting that a fundamental functional organization exists in the hippocampus to encode for all types of information. This runs counter to the popular view that the hippocampus is randomly organized. The above mentioned studies, thus far, have used 2D reconstructions of the dorsal hippocampus which do not provide a full view of the organization of the entire structure. We have recently undertaken another set of experiments aimed at providing a 3D functional reconstruction of the entire hippocampus to more fully understand the functional organization. We have been exploring a number of 3D reconstruction methods including tissue clearing techniques, imaging protocols, etc. These data will be presented at an upcoming meeting (Arai and Pavlides, 2018).
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Research Products
(1 results)
