Memory and Navigation Circuits - Ito Group

Spatial navigation is a fundamental ability for animals living in a geometric space. While animals use various strategies to reach a desired location, many lines of evidence suggest that rats are able to use geometric relationships of landmarks, or a map, for navigation. Supporting this idea, neurons that fire selectively depending on the animal’s position, such as place cells or grid cells, were discovered in the hippocampus and accompanying parahippocampal structures. However, while these cells may be ideal to estimate the animal’s instantaneous position, it has been largely unclear how these cells are used to plan a next movement to reach the goal location.
In our research group, we investigate the neural circuits that are required for animals to implement map-based navigation. Specifically, we are interested in how the spatial representation in the hippocampus is used in downstream brain structures for route planning. To achieve this aim, we perform high-density chronic recordings from freely behaving rats to monitor hundreds of neurons simultaneously across multiple brain areas involved in navigation. Due to the data complexity, our analyses largely rely on statistical and computational methods to decipher the neural code. The recording experiments are supplemented with optogenetic and pharmacogenetic manipulations of the neural activity to understand the computational impact of a particular subset of neurons in the circuits.
Our research focus is not limited to cortical regions. The hippocampus has long been considered to have extensive anatomical interactions with subcortical structures in the thalamus and hypothalamus. We investigate the functional contribution of these subcortical areas, particularly in long-range communication across multiple brain structures including the hippocampus.
Interactive
Upcoming Lectures and Events
22 April 2021
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mpibr External Postdoctoral Seminar Concatenations by Chris Rodgers (Columbia University, New York)Title: Sensorimotor strategies and neuronal representations for shape recognition in mice [more] |
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27 April 2021
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Connecting Brains Lecture by Susana Lima (Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal)Title: Neural circuits controlling sexual behavior [more] |
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28 April 2021
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Neuroscience Lecture by Emily Osterweil (Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences University of Edinburgh)Title: The long and short of altered translation in Fragile X [more] |
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12 May 2021
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Neuroscience Online Lecture by Maria Robles (Institute of Medical Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich)Title: t.b.a. [more] |
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18 May 2021
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Connecting Brains Lecture by Jee Hyun Kim (School of Medicine, IMPACT, the Institute for Mental and Physical Health and Clinical Translation, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia)Title: A cross-species approach to understand adolescent vulnerability to mental disorder... [more] |
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