Principles governing the integration of landmark and self-motion cues in entorhinal cortical codes for navigation

Nat Neurosci. 2018 Aug;21(8):1096-1106. doi: 10.1038/s41593-018-0189-y. Epub 2018 Jul 23.

Abstract

To guide navigation, the nervous system integrates multisensory self-motion and landmark information. We dissected how these inputs generate spatial representations by recording entorhinal grid, border and speed cells in mice navigating virtual environments. Manipulating the gain between the animal's locomotion and the visual scene revealed that border cells responded to landmark cues while grid and speed cells responded to combinations of locomotion, optic flow and landmark cues in a context-dependent manner, with optic flow becoming more influential when it was faster than expected. A network model explained these results by revealing a phase transition between two regimes in which grid cells remain coherent with or break away from the landmark reference frame. Moreover, during path-integration-based navigation, mice estimated their position following principles predicted by our recordings. Together, these results provide a theoretical framework for understanding how landmark and self-motion cues combine during navigation to generate spatial representations and guide behavior.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cues*
  • Entorhinal Cortex / cytology
  • Entorhinal Cortex / physiology*
  • Evoked Potentials / physiology
  • Female
  • Locomotion / physiology
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Movement / physiology*
  • Neural Networks, Computer
  • Neurons / classification
  • Orientation / physiology*
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology
  • Space Perception / physiology*
  • Virtual Reality
  • Visual Perception / physiology