Steven Poulter, Sang Ah Lee, James Dachtler, Thomas J. Wills, Colin Lever. Vector Trace cells in the Subiculum of the Hippocampal formation. bioRxiv 805242; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/805242

Abstract
“Successfully navigating in physical or semantic space requires a neural representation of allocentric (map-based) vectors to boundaries, objects, and goals. Cognitive processes such as path-planning and imagination entail recall of vector representations, but evidence of neuron-level memory for allocentric vectors has been lacking. Here we describe a novel neuron type (Vector Trace cell, VTC) whose firing generates a new vector field when a cue is encountered, and also a ‘trace’ version of that field for hours after cue removal. VTCs are concentrated in subiculum distal to CA1. Compared to non-trace cells, VTCs fire at further distances from cues, and exhibit earlier-going shifts in preferred theta phase in response to newly introduced cues, demonstrating a theta-linked neural substrate for memory encoding. VTCs suggest a vector-based model of computing spatial relationships between an agent and multiple spatial objects, or between different objects, freed from the constraints of direct perception of those objects.“

Steven Poulter, Sang Ah Lee, James Dachtler, Thomas J. Wills, Colin Lever. Vector Trace cells in the Subiculum of the Hippocampal formation. bioRxiv 805242; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/805242