Spatial View Cells in the Primate Hippocampus: Effects of Removal of View Details. Robert G. Robertson, Edmund T. Rolls and Pierre Georges-Fran‡ois. University of Oxford, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford OX1 3UD, England.
APStracts 4:323N, 1997.
ABSTRACT
Hippocampal function was analysed by making recordings from hippocampal formation neurons in macaques actively walking in the laboratory. "Spatial view" cells which respond when the monkey looks at a part of the environment were analysed. It is shown that many of these cells retain their spatial characteristics when the view details are totally obscured by curtains and by darkness. It is shown that many of these cells respond more when the monkey is gazing towards one location in the room than towards other locations, even though none of the view details can be seen. Such cells were found in the CA1 region, the parahippocampal gyrus and the presubiculum. Other cells stopped responding when the monkey looked towards the normally effective location in the environment if the view details were obscured. These cells were in the CA3 region of the hippocampus. The results indicate that for CA3 cells the visual input is necessary for the normal spatial response of the neurons, and for other cells in the primate hippocampal formation, the response still depends on the monkey gazing towards that location in space, when the view details are obscured. These latter cells could therefore reflect the operation of a memory system, in which the neuronal activity can be triggered by factors which probably include not only eye position command / feedback signals, but also probably vestibular and/or proprioceptive inputs. This representation of space "out there" would be an appropriate part of a primate memory system involved in memories of where in an environment an object was seen, and more generally in the memory of particular events or episodes, for which a spatial component normally provides part of the context. 

Received 31 March 1997; accepted in final form 10 November 1997.
APS Manuscript Number J264-7.
Article publication pending J. Neurophysiol.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1997 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 12 December 1997