A cognitive map for object memory in the hippocampus
- 1Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA;
- 2Center for Memory and Brain, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
Abstract
The hippocampus has been proposed to support a cognitive map, a mental representation of the spatial layout of an environment as well as the nonspatial items encountered in that environment. In the present study, we recorded simultaneously from 43 to 61 hippocampal pyramidal cells as rats performed an object recognition memory task in which novel and repeated objects were encountered in different locations on a circular track. Multivariate analyses of the neural data indicated that information about object identity was represented secondarily to the primary information dimension of object location. In addition, the neural data related to performance on the recognition memory task. The results suggested that objects were represented as points of interest on the hippocampal cognitive map and that this map was useful in remembering encounters with particular objects in specific locations.
Footnotes
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↵3 Corresponding author.
E-mail jmanns{at}emory.edu; fax (404) 727-4034.
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[Supplemental material is available online at http://www.learnmem.org.]
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Article is online at http://www.learnmem.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/lm.1484509.
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- Received May 14, 2009.
- Accepted July 21, 2009.
- Copyright © 2009 by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press