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An emergent neural coactivity code for dynamic memory
Mohamady El-Gaby1,2, Hayley M Reeve3, Vítor Lopes-Dos-Santos3
1Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. mohamady.el-gaby@ndcn.ox.ac.uk.
Nature Neuroscience
|March 30, 2021
Summary
Neural coactivity in the hippocampus, not just individual neuron firing, encodes short-term behaviors. This neural coactivity is crucial for memory retrieval and learning.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- Neural activity encodes external variables guiding behavior.
- The role of higher-order neural features like multineuron coactivity in encoding remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate if millisecond-timescale coactivity among hippocampal neurons encodes behavioral contingencies.
- Determine if coactivity plays a primary or secondary role in neural coding.
Main Methods:
- Recorded neural activity from hippocampal CA1 neurons.
- Analyzed millisecond-timescale coactivity patterns.
- Used optogenetics to suppress CA3 inputs during learning.
Main Results:
- Hippocampal CA1 neuron coactivity discriminated distinct behavioral contingencies.
- Contingency discrimination was an emergent property of coactivity, independent of individual neuron tuning.
- Offline reactivation of contingency-discriminating patterns predicted memory performance.
- Suppression of CA3 inputs impaired coactivity-based information and memory retrieval.
Conclusions:
- Millisecond-timescale neural coactivity is a primary neural code for behaviorally relevant variables.
- Coactivity is essential for memory retrieval and dynamic memory processes.
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