Week 5: Hippocampus as Associative Memory Network Flashcards
Diagram of dorsal and ventral hippocampus in the rodent hippocampus
In the hippocampus, we have four principles areas (4)
- Hippocampus proper
- Dentate gyrus (DG)
- subiculum,
- and entorhinal area (EC)
What is the hippocampus proper made up of?
CA1, CA2 and CA3
The hippocampus is similar in
rodents and humans
The part of hippocampus that receives input from other areas of the brain is
EC (enthorine cortex)
The primary information processing pathway in the hippocampus is from the cortex into DG then
sends CA3,CA3 sends to CA1 and CA1 sends to SUB (subiculum)
The hippocampus is very similar across species as there is
similarities in mammals
There is similarities in mammals (mice, monkeys, humans)in their hippocampus as the - (2)
DG projects massively to CA3 (not vice versa)
CA3 projects massively to CA1 (not vice versa)
The Hopefield Network (HF) is known as the ‘toy’ model because this is a realistic model of a wiring diagram which is (2)
highly processed complex multisensory
it goes from unimodal primary sensory areas to polymodal association cortex
Polymodal association cortices where
Many different streams of information that converge on a neuron that is responsive to many different types of information
When sticking electrode in hippocampus we look at the
collective input
If we stick an electrode in the hippocampus when we are offline like resting and sleeping in which we
this could help (2)
We get ripples (high-frequency bouts of activity) the theta oscillations of membrane potential
which could help in consolidating and replaying memories
If we stick an electrode in the hippocampus when we tasks focused (online) while encoding and retrieving memories
we get these slow theta oscillations in the membrane potential
When we look at individual cells in the hippocampus proper we find cells called
place cells which maximally response to specific locations in the world which is found from 10-20 minute single-cell recordings of mice travelling in box with food rewards
Diagram of place cells (2)
Record a green dot every time that neuron recorded fires
Red represents maximal firing
When looking at individual cells in the EC cortex in hippocampus we find cells called
grid cells
grid cells are
Neurons that respond when an animal is in particular locations in an environment such that the responsive locations form a repeating grid-like pattern
Grid cells are important for
navigation and play an important role in memory
Diagram of grid cells
When looking at individual cells in hippocampus we also find head direction cells which
encode the heading of an animal
Diagram of HD cell plot
Diagram of HD cell plot
When we find individual cells in the hippocampus we find cells called boundary cells which
respond to the presence of an environmental boundary at a particular distance
There are boundary cells that fire boundaries at
east, west, south etc.. and for south west
Boundary cells appear to be related to
HD cells
Diagram of boundary cell
We know that the hippocampus is also important for spatial memory - (2)
e.g., Morris water maze
In Humans, taxi drivers in London have enlarged hippocampus by memorizing all of the streets
Hippocampus is a major area affected in
Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, epilepsy
The degeneration of the hippocampus causes
deficits in spatial and episodic memory