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Splitter Cells: Hippocampal Place Cells Whose Firing Is Modulated by Where the Animal Is Going or Where It Has Been

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Space,Time and Memory in the Hippocampal Formation

Abstract

When a rat runs through a given location on its way to or from different destinations, place fields encoding this location often fire at a higher rate for one of the two (or more) journey types, compared to the others. This unequal “splitting” of a place field suggests that the hippocampus differentiates between common segments of routes leading to or from different places. In the current chapter, we review the initial demonstrations of this pattern of place cell firing and consider the contribution of different task demands and discriminative cues. We conclude by considering the development of splitters and what is known about their essential circuitry.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK

    Paul A. Dudchenko

  2. Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

    Emma R. Wood

Authors
  1. Paul A. Dudchenko
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  2. Emma R. Wood
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul A. Dudchenko .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion- Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

    Dori Derdikman

  2. The Solomon H. Snyder Dept. of Neurosc., John Hopkins University The Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    James J. Knierim

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Dudchenko, P.A., Wood, E.R. (2014). Splitter Cells: Hippocampal Place Cells Whose Firing Is Modulated by Where the Animal Is Going or Where It Has Been. In: Derdikman, D., Knierim, J. (eds) Space,Time and Memory in the Hippocampal Formation. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1292-2_10

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