Hippocampal place cells construct reward related sequences through unexplored space
H Freyja Ólafsdóttir,
Caswell Barry,
Aman B Saleem,
Demis Hassabis,
Hugo J Spiers
Affiliations
H Freyja Ólafsdóttir
Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, Department of Experimental Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Caswell Barry
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Aman B Saleem
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Demis Hassabis
Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Hugo J Spiers
Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, Department of Experimental Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Dominant theories of hippocampal function propose that place cell representations are formed during an animal's first encounter with a novel environment and are subsequently replayed during off-line states to support consolidation and future behaviour. Here we report that viewing the delivery of food to an unvisited portion of an environment leads to off-line pre-activation of place cells sequences corresponding to that space. Such ‘preplay’ was not observed for an unrewarded but otherwise similar portion of the environment. These results suggest that a hippocampal representation of a visible, yet unexplored environment can be formed if the environment is of motivational relevance to the animal. We hypothesise such goal-biased preplay may support preparation for future experiences in novel environments.
