Electrophysiological recording of place cell activity in hippocampal CA1.

• Main Author: Ng, Yi Qiang.
• Other Authors: School of Biological Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science::Biological sciences::Human anatomy and physiology::Neurobiology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/54817
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

More than 40 years ago, O’Keefe & Dostrovsky reported the discovery of place cells which are neurons in the rat hippocampus, believed to be pyramidal cells that show spatial selective activation in certain location of an environment, termed the place field. Since then, place cells have proposed as the basic components of a cognitive map that are constantly providing an updated representation of the allocentric space and self-location in an environment. As a part of the project of a PhD student, Mr. Mehdi Fallahnezhad, this study focused on the rat’s hippocampus CA1 pyramidal layer. The rats would perform spatial exploration task in both familiar and novel environment while electrophysiological recordings were carried out to identify neuronal cells via the tetrodes of the implanted microdrives. A total of eight neurons were identified to exhibit spatial specific firing and other place cell properties. The neuron displayed stability of place fields within a familiar environment and show remapping of place fields when exposure to a novel environment. This stability of place field extends even after remapping occurred. Thus, suggesting the importance of place cells in spatial memory. The result obtained could serve a platform into further studies of spatial memory.