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Updated: May 14, 2026
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Dual Extracellular Recordings in the Mouse Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex
Published on: February 16, 2024
Prefrontal cortex focally modulates hippocampal place cell firing patterns
Vincent Hok1, Ehsan Chah, Etienne Save
1Aix-Marseille Université, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LNC-UMR 7291, 13331 Cedex 3, Marseille, France.
Summary
Overtraining rats in a navigation task makes the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) unnecessary for performance. However, mPFC inactivation alters hippocampal place cell firing variability, suggesting a role in behavioral flexibility.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Behavioral Neuroscience
Background:
- Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) cells show goal-specific activity in navigation tasks.
- Hippocampal place cells can develop secondary fields at goal locations.
- Coordination between hippocampus and mPFC may underlie trajectory planning.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of the mPFC in goal-directed navigation and hippocampal spatial representations.
- To determine if the mPFC is required for overtrained navigation behavior.
- To examine the effect of mPFC inactivation on hippocampal place cell activity.
Main Methods:
- Inactivation of the mPFC in overtrained rats performing a goal-oriented navigation task.
- Recording of hippocampal place cell activity (single unit and local field potentials).
- Analysis of behavioral performance and place cell firing patterns, including variability.
Main Results:
- Post-training mPFC inactivation did not impair behavioral performance in overtrained rats.
- Goal-related activity of hippocampal place cells remained unaffected.
- Suppression of prefrontal input led to significant changes in place cell firing variability (overdispersion).
Conclusions:
- The mPFC is not essential for navigation performance in overtrained animals.
- The mPFC may play a role in modulating hippocampal spatial representations, potentially influencing behavioral flexibility.
- Altered firing variability in place cells following mPFC inactivation could be a mechanism for flexible behavior.
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