Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Search research articles

Related Experiment Videos

Head direction cells in the primate pre-subiculum.

R G Robertson¹, E T Rolls, P Georges-François

¹Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, England.

|July 13, 1999

Summary

Researchers discovered head direction cells in the primate presubiculum that encode directional information independently of location. These cells are crucial for spatial navigation and memory functions like path integration.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Why 4D ultrasound has not (yet) revolutionized fetal-movement research.

Ultrasound in obstetrics & gynecology : the official journal of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology·2021

Same author

Brain mechanisms for invariant visual recognition and learning.

Behavioural processes·2014

Same author

Abstracts of Presentations at the International Conference on Basic and Clinical Multimodal Imaging (BaCI), a Joint Conference of the International Society for Neuroimaging in Psychiatry (ISNIP), the International Society for Functional Source Imaging (ISFSI), the International Society for Bioelectromagnetism (ISBEM), the International Society for Brain Electromagnetic Topography (ISBET), and the EEG and Clinical Neuroscience Society (ECNS), in Geneva, Switzerland, September 5-8, 2013.

Clinical EEG and neuroscience·2013

Same author

Taste and olfactory status in a gourmand with a right amygdala lesion.

Neurocase·2013

Same author

Taste, olfactory and food texture reward processing in the brain and obesity.

International journal of obesity (2005)·2010

Same author

Continuous transformation learning of translation invariant representations.

Experimental brain research·2010

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Primate Research

Background:

The primate hippocampus and associated structures are vital for spatial memory and navigation.
Understanding the neural basis of spatial representation is key to deciphering cognitive functions.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the function of the primate hippocampus and related structures during active locomotion.
To identify and characterize neural correlates of spatial information processing in primates.

Main Methods:

Electrophysiological recordings were performed in the hippocampus, subiculum, presubiculum, and parahippocampal gyrus of monkeys walking in a laboratory setting.
Analysis focused on the firing patterns of neurons in relation to the monkey's head direction, location, and visual input.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

Head direction cells were identified in the presubiculum, exhibiting robust directional tuning (10-100x firing rate difference between best and opposite directions).
These cells' responses were independent of the monkey's location, spatial view, or eye position, maintaining tuning even in darkness.
Information analysis revealed significant coding for head direction (0.64 bits) compared to place (0.10 bits) or spatial view (0.27 bits).

Conclusions:

The presubiculum contains head direction cells that provide a stable directional signal crucial for spatial cognition.
This head direction representation, alongside hippocampal spatial view and motion cells, likely supports complex spatial and memory functions such as path integration in primates.