2015/12/19 by Julija Krupic, Krupic, Julija, Neil Burgess +4 · 5 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Neuroscience · #Biology #Business #Economic geography #FOS: Biological sciences #Gene Regulatory Network Analysis #Geography #Geology #Isolation (microbiology) #Neural dynamics and brain function #Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC) #q-bio.NC
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1512.06248
published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University) · 20 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables
arxiv created 2015/12/19 · openalex publication_date 2015/12/19 · arxiv updated 2015/12/22 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Grid cells recorded in the parahippocampal formation of freely moving rodents provide a strikingly periodic representation of self-location whose underlying mechanism has been the subject of intense interest. Our previous work(1) showed that grid cells represent the most stable subset of a larger continuum of spatially periodic cells (SPCs) which deviate from the hexagonal symmetry observed in grid cells. Recently Navratilova et al(2) suggested that our findings reflected poor isolation of the spikes from multiple grid cells, rather than the existence of actual non-grid SPCs. Here we refute this suggestion by showing that: (i) most SPCs cannot be formed from hexagonal grids; (ii) all standard cluster isolation measures are similar between recorded grid cells and non-grid SPCs, and are comparable to those reported in other laboratories; (iii) the spikes from different fields of band-like SPCs do not differ. Thus the theoretical implications of the presence of cells with spatially periodic firing patterns that diverge from perfect hexagonality need to be taken seriously, rather than explained away on the basis of hopeful but unjustified assumptions.