Place Cells and Place Recognition Maintained by Direct Entorhinal-Hippocampal Circuitry

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1071089
• Publication Date: 2002-07-28T23:06:23Z
• Authors: Vegard H. Brun; Mona K. Otnæss; Sturla Molden; Hill-Aina Steffenach; Menno P. Witter; May-Britt Moser; Edvard I. Moser
• Keywords: Entorhinal cortex; Cognitive map

Place cells in hippocampal area CA1 may receive positional information from the intrahippocampal associative network CA3 or directly entorhinal cortex. To determine whether direct connections support spatial firing and memory, we removed all input areas to CA1, thus isolating area. Pyramidal isolated developed sharp stable place fields. Rats with an showed normal acquisition of hippocampal-dependent recognition task. Spatial recall was impaired. These results suggest that hippocampus contains two functionally separable memory circuits: The entorhinal-CA1 system is sufficient for recollection-based but depends on intact CA3-CA1 connectivity.