Properties of place cell firing after damage to the visual cortex

Hippocampal place cells were recorded while rats with lesions of the striate visual cortex foraged for food pellets in a cylindrical arena. Compared to control rats, rats with striate damage had place cells whose firing was less well organized in space, according to a measurement of spatial coherence. More importantly, the spatial location of firing fields in rats with striate lesions was poorly controlled by three-dimensional objects, unlike the fields of either normal sighted rats or early blind rats. These findings suggest a possible contribution of the striate visual cortex to the selection of cues used for anchoring place cell firing fields in space.