Hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated 1 independent grid cell-phase precession in mice

Cell assemblies code information in both the temporal and spatial domain. One tractable example of temporal coding is the phenomenon of phase precession. In medial entorhinal cortex, theta-phase precession is observed in spatially specific grid cells, with grid spike-times shifting to earlier phases of the extracellular theta rhythm as the animal passes through the grid field. Although the exact mechanisms underlying spatial-temporal coding remain unknown, computational work points to single-cell oscillatory activity as a biophysical mechanism capable of producing phase precession. Support for this idea comes from observed correlations between single-cell resonance and entorhinal neurons characterized by phase precession. Here, we take advantage of the absence of single-cell theta-frequency resonance in hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) 1 knockout (KO) mice to examine the relationship between intrinsic rhythmicity and phase precession. We find phase precession is highly comparable between forebrain-restricted HCN1 KO and wild-type mice. Grid fields in HCN1 KO mice display more experience-dependent asymmetry however, consistent with reports of enhanced long-term potentiation in the absence of HCN1 and raising the possibility that the loss of HCN1 improves temporal coding via the rate-phase transformation. Combined, our results clarify the role of HCN1 channels in temporal coding and constrain the number of possible mechanisms generating phase precession. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.