Grid cells in rats deprived of geometric experience during development

The medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) is part of the brain's network for dynamic representation of location. The most abundant class of neurons in this circuit is the grid cell, characterized by its periodic, hexagonally patterned firing fields. While in developing animals some MEC cell types express adult-like firing patterns already on the first exposure to an open spatial environment, only days after eye opening, grid cells mature more slowly, over a 1-to-2-wk period after the animals leave their nest. Whether the later emergence of a periodic grid pattern reflects a need for experience with spatial environments has not been determined. We here show that grid-like firing patterns continue to appear during exploration of open square environments in rats that are raised for the first months of their life in opaque spherical environments, in the absence of stable reference boundaries to guide spatial orientation. While strictly periodic firing fields were initially absent in these animals, clear grid patterns developed after only a few trials of training. In rats that were tested in the same open environment but raised for the first months of life in opaque cubes, with sharp vertical boundaries, grid-like firing was from the beginning indistinguishable from that of nondeprived control animals growing up in large enriched cages. Thus, although a minimum of experience with peripheral geometric boundaries is required for expression of regular grid patterns in a new environment, the effect of restricted spatial experience is overcome with short training, consistent with a preconfigured experience-independent basis for the grid pattern.