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Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex

Nature volume 436, pages 801–806 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

The ability to find one's way depends on neural algorithms that integrate information about place, distance and direction, but the implementation of these operations in cortical microcircuits is poorly understood. Here we show that the dorsocaudal medial entorhinal cortex (dMEC) contains a directionally oriented, topographically organized neural map of the spatial environment. Its key unit is the ‘grid cell’, which is activated whenever the animal's position coincides with any vertex of a regular grid of equilateral triangles spanning the surface of the environment. Grids of neighbouring cells share a common orientation and spacing, but their vertex locations (their phases) differ. The spacing and size of individual fields increase from dorsal to ventral dMEC. The map is anchored to external landmarks, but persists in their absence, suggesting that grid cells may be part of a generalized, path-integration-based map of the spatial environment.

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Figure 1: Firing fields of grid cells have a repetitive triangular structure.
Figure 2: Grid cells recorded simultaneously at two electrode locations in the same rat.
Figure 3: Distributed spatial phase of co-localized grid cells.
Figure 4: Grids are aligned to environment-specific landmarks.
Figure 5: Grids persist in darkness.
Figure 6: Grid structure of dMEC cells is expressed instantly in a novel environment.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the members of the Centre for the Biology of Memory as well as W. E. Skaggs, J. Lisman and G. Einevoll for discussions. We also thank the technical team of the Centre for their assistance. This work is supported by the Norwegian Research Council's Centre of Excellence scheme.

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Author notes

  1. Sturla Molden

    Present address: Department of Physiology, University of Oslo, PO Box 1103, Blindern, Oslo, 0317, Norway

  2. Torkel Hafting and Marianne Fyhn: *These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the Biology of Memory, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7489, Trondheim, Norway

    Torkel Hafting, Marianne Fyhn, Sturla Molden, May-Britt Moser & Edvard I. Moser

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Correspondence to Edvard I. Moser.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Methods

Supplementary Methods (pdf format), including procedures for computation of spatial autocorrelations and cross-correlations. (PDF 36 kb)

Supplementary Figure S1

Temporal autocorrelation diagrams and spatial autocorrelation diagrams for scrambled rate maps. (PDF 243 kb)

Supplementary Figure S2

Trajectory and rate maps showing that grid vertices are stable across trials. (PDF 1308 kb)

Supplementary Figure S3

Trajectory and rate maps showing preserved grid spacing after scaling of the environment. (PDF 1165 kb)

Supplementary Figure S4

Grids recorded at different dorsoventral positions in dMEC. (PDF 2022 kb)

Supplementary Figure S5

Spatial cross-correlations between cells recorded simultaneously from areas with different grid spacing. (PDF 882 kb)

Supplementary Figure S6

Cue rotation experiment showing alignment of firing grids to environment-specific landmarks (PDF 482 kb)

Supplementary Figure S7

Trajectory and rate maps showing maintained grid structure after onset of darkness. (PDF 1949 kb)

Supplementary Figure S8

Trajectory with spikes in a rat running on a linear track in darkness. (PDF 198 kb)

Supplementary Figure S9

Parallel recording of entorhinal grid cells and hippocampal place cells (area CA3). (PDF 1172 kb)

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Hafting, T., Fyhn, M., Molden, S. et al. Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex. Nature 436, 801–806 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03721

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