Hippocampal mnemonic influences on visual cortical neurons.

描述（由申请人提供）：了解情景记忆的神经机制是记忆相关精神和神经疾病的基础，如创伤后应激障碍和阿尔茨海默病。虽然新皮层和海马体对情景记忆很重要，但这些记忆的感觉内容是如何储存的还不清楚。根据目前的理论，感觉成分储存在新皮层中，而海马体的作用是将这些成分结合在一起。然而，没有证据表明存在这种参与处理感觉成分但功能上受HP约束的新皮层神经元。我们的初步研究表明，自由活动的大鼠初级视觉皮层中的许多细胞在环境的特定位置放电，这种特性被认为是海马体及其周围皮层区域的细胞所特有的。我们假设这些视觉皮质神经元参与处理空间记忆的视觉成分，并受到海马细胞的影响。本研究将利用四极体同时记录空间导航任务大鼠的视觉皮质和海马神经元，研究它们是否与空间学习或记忆有关，以及它们是否依赖于海马。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Understanding the neural mechanisms of episodic memory is fundamental to memory-related psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as post traumatic stress disorder and Alzheimer's disease. Although it is clear that the neocortex and hippocampus are important for episodic memories, how sensory contents of these memories are stored is unknown. According to current theories, sensory components are stored in the neocortex, whereas the role of hippocampus is to bind the components together. However, there is no evidence for the existence of such neocortical neurons that are involved in processing the sensory components but functionally bound by HP. Our preliminary studies revealed that many cells in the primary visual cortex of freely moving rats fired at specific places of an environment, a property thought to be unique to cells in the hippocampus and its surrounding cortical areas. We hypothesize that these visual cortical neurons are involved in processing the visual components of spatial memories and influenced by hippocampal cells. Using simultaneous tetrode recordings of visual cortical and hippocampal neurons in rats performing spatial navigation tasks, this proposal will investigate the place-specific visual cortical neurons and study whether they are related to spatial learning or memory and whether they depend on the hippocampus.