Hippocampal spatial representations supporting path integration

路径整合是一种简单的导航形式，在此期间，智能体整合自我运动线索，如线速度和角速度，以跟踪其相对于起点的位置。损伤研究表明，海马是必不可少的路径整合。然而，我们对海马体在路径整合中的作用的理解仍然有限，因为海马体的活动从未在自由移动的动物中记录过。在初步工作中，我们已经开发了一个新的路径整合任务，适合于空间选择性神经元的并发记录。在这个项目中，我们希望牢固地建立这种新的行为范式的路径整合的研究，并提供了第一个表征的海马代表在自由移动的小鼠路径整合任务。我们假设，海马神经元编码的矢量表示的开始位置在任务。此外，我们将进行光遗传学实验，以确认海马是必不可少的性能准确性的新路径整合任务。

Path integration is a simple form of navigation during which an agent integrates self-motion cues, such as linear and angular velocity, to keep track of its position relative to a starting point. Lesion studies indicate that the hippocampus is essential for path integration. Our understanding of the role of the hippocampus in path integration, however, has remained limited because hippocampal activity has never been recorded in freely moving animals engaged in a path integration task. In preliminary work, we have developed a new path integration task suitable for concurrent recording of spatially selective neurons. In this project, we want to firmly establish this new behavioral paradigm for the study of path integration and provide a first characterization of the hippocampal representation during a path integration task in freely moving mice. We hypothesize that hippocampal neurons encode a vectorial representation of the starting location during the task. In addition, we will perform optogenetic experiments to confirm that the hippocampus is essential to performance accuracy on the new path integration task.