Spatial cell firing during virtual navigation of open arenas by head-restrained mice

  1. Guifen Chen
  2. John Andrew King
  3. Yi Lu
  4. Francesca Cacucci  Is a corresponding author
  5. Neil Burgess  Is a corresponding author
  1. University College London, United Kingdom

Abstract

We present a mouse virtual reality (VR) system which restrains head-movements to horizontal rotations, compatible with multi-photon imaging. This system allows expression of the spatial navigation and neuronal firing patterns characteristic of real open arenas (R). Comparing VR to R: place and grid, but not head-direction, cell firing had broader spatial tuning; place, but not grid, cell firing was more directional; theta frequency increased less with running speed; whereas increases in firing rates with running speed and place and grid cells' theta phase precession were similar. These results suggest that the omni-directional place cell firing in R may require local-cues unavailable in VR, and that the scale of grid and place cell firing patterns, and theta frequency, reflect translational motion inferred from both virtual (visual and proprioceptive) and real (vestibular translation and extra-maze) cues. By contrast, firing rates and theta phase precession appear to reflect visual and proprioceptive cues alone.

Data availability

Data have been made available via the Open Science Framework platform (https://osf.io/yvmf4/)

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Guifen Chen

    UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. John Andrew King

    Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  3. Yi Lu

    UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Francesca Cacucci

    Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    f.cacucci@ucl.ac.uk
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Neil Burgess

    UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    n.burgess@ucl.ac.uk
    Competing interests
    Neil Burgess, Reviewing editor, eLife.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0646-6584

Funding

Wellcome (202805/Z/16/Z)

  • Neil Burgess

Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (Research and Innovation program 720270)

  • Guifen Chen
  • Francesca Cacucci
  • Neil Burgess

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/I021221/1)

  • Francesca Cacucci

H2020 European Research Council (DEVSPACE Starting grant)

  • Francesca Cacucci

China Scholarship Council (201509110138)

  • Yi Lu

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All work was carried out under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and according to Home Office and institutional guidelines.

Copyright

© 2018, Chen et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Guifen Chen
  2. John Andrew King
  3. Yi Lu
  4. Francesca Cacucci
  5. Neil Burgess
(2018)
Spatial cell firing during virtual navigation of open arenas by head-restrained mice
eLife 7:e34789.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34789

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34789

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