英国伦敦大学John O’Keefe与合作团队发现，海马位置细胞在导航时可形成目标导向的矢量场。2022年7月6日，国际学术期刊《自然》发表了这一成果。
研究人员检测了大鼠导航到蜂窝迷宫目标位置过程中CA1位置细胞的活动。迷宫通过直接和间接路径测试导航目标，并允许在每个选择点评估位置单元的方向性。位置场显示出强烈的方向极化，其特征是矢量场汇聚到分布在整个环境中的汇。这些“收敛汇”（ConSinks）的分布集中在目标位置附近，数量向量场收敛于目标，提供了强大的导航信号。更改目标位置会导致ConSinks和矢量场向新目标移动。蜂窝迷宫允许独立评估空间代表和空间动作的细胞活动，并显示后者与前者的关系。
结果表明，海马体创建了一个基于矢量的模型来支持灵活导航，允许动物从环境中的任何位置选择到达目的地的最佳路径。
据介绍，海马认知图帮助导航到远离熟悉环境中的显著位置。尽管很多研究揭示了海马体如何在以世界为中心的坐标中编码位置，但它如何实现灵活导航却鲜为人知。
附：英文原文
Title: Hippocampal place cells have goal-oriented vector fields during navigation
Author: Ormond, Jake, OKeefe, John
Issue&Volume: 2022-07-06
Abstract: The hippocampal cognitive map supports navigation towards, or away from, salient locations in familiar environments1. Although much is known about how the hippocampus encodes location in world-centred coordinates, how it supports flexible navigation is less well understood. We recorded CA1 place cells while rats navigated to a goal on the honeycomb maze2. The maze tests navigation via direct and indirect paths to the goal and allows the directionality of place cells to be assessed at each choice point. Place fields showed strong directional polarization characterized by vector fields that converged to sinks distributed throughout the environment. The distribution of these ‘convergence sinks’ (ConSinks) was centred near the goal location and the population vector field converged on the goal, providing a strong navigational signal. Changing the goal location led to movement of ConSinks and vector fields towards the new goal. The honeycomb maze allows independent assessment of spatial representation and spatial action in place cell activity and shows how the latter relates to the former. The results suggest that the hippocampus creates a vector-based model to support flexible navigation, allowing animals to select optimal paths to destinations from any location in the environment.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04913-9
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04913-9
Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504
官方网址：http://www.nature.com/
投稿链接：http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html
本期文章：《自然》：Online/在线发表
