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J Neurophysiol 94: 1920-1927, 2005. First published April 27, 2005; doi:10.1152/jn.00194.2005
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Movement-Related Correlates of Single-Cell Activity in the Medial Mammillary Nucleus of the Rat During a Pellet-Chasing Task

Patricia E. Sharp and Shawnda Turner-Williams

Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio

Submitted 23 February 2005; accepted in final form 7 April 2005


 ABSTRACT
 
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 GRANTS
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 REFERENCES
 
Although the functional role of the mammillary bodies has remained obscure, lesion studies suggest this structure may play a role in memory—in particular, memory for spatial information. Indeed, anatomically, the mammillary bodies are strongly interconnected with limbic system regions, such as the hipppocampal formation, which are also thought to play a role in spatial behavior. Each of these limbic regions so far investigated contains cells that signal either the momentary location and/or directional heading of an animal as it travels through space. In fact, the lateral mammillary nucleus itself contains head direction cells, and is thought to be critical for the initial calculation of this directional signal. Here, we provide an initial report on cell activity in the medial mammillary nucleus. Cells were recorded while rats performed a pellet-chasing task that has been used for much of the work on place and head direction cells. The main findings are 1) approximately 1/3 of the cells showed a temporally precise relationship to angular motion of the head, so that they differentially indicated clockwise versus counterclockwise angular motion, 2) approximately 60% of the cells showed a temporally coarse correlation with translational motion, 3) firing rate for almost all cells was strongly modulated at theta frequency, and 4) no cells showed evidence of either directional or place-related activity. These data suggest that the medial and lateral mammillary nuclei together provide the directional and trajectory information thought to be critical for generation of the spatial signals in the hippocampal region.


 INTRODUCTION
 
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 GRANTS
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 REFERENCES
 

"One of the few things that is agreed about the mammillary bodies is that they might or might not be important for memory."

—Vann and Aggleton 2004

As this quote illustrates, the functional role of the mammillary bodies has remained elusive despite more than a century of effort. Lesion work suggests the mammillary bodies are critical for memory under certain conditions, perhaps especially conditions requiring spatial memory (Sziklas and Petrides 1998Go; Vann and Aggleton 2004Go). However, it remains unclear how to precisely characterize these conditions.

As reviewed elsewhere (Allen and Hopkins 1989Go; Vann and Aggleton 2004Go), the mammillary bodies and their associated structures can be divided into at least two separate systems (Fig. 1A). Both of these are components of a larger loop that travels from the mammillary bodies, to the anterior thalamus, to limbic cortex, and then back.



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FIG. 1. Limbic system place and head direction signals. A: schematic illustration of the 2 parallel limbic system loops that are involved in spatial information processing. Also shown are the dorsal and ventral tegmental nuclei of Gudden, which are reciprocally connected to the lateral and medial mammillary nuclei, respectively. B: overhead view of the cylindrical recording chamber used to study the place and head direction signals. Squiggly line is meant to indicate that the rats constantly locomote through the cylinder as they search for tiny food pellets that are dropped to random locations on the cylinder floor throughout the session. C: illustration of the scale, in degrees, used as the metric for directional heading within the cylinder. Parallel arrows illustrate that the head direction cell shown in E fired optimally only when the rat's head was aligned with these arrows, so that its head was facing at approximately 180 degrees. D: firing rate map for a typical subicular place cell. Average relative firing rate of the cell for each pixel is indicated using a gray scale in which darker shades correspond to higher rates. Cell shown here fired at high rates when the rat was in the top left region of the cylinder. E: average firing rate as a function of head direction for a typical head direction cell recorded from the postsubiculum. Note, the cell fires optimally when the head faces a single preferred direction, and rates fall off symmetrically over an approximately 90 degree range surrounding this. Abbreviations: ADN, anterodorsal nucleus; AMN, anteromedial nucleus; AVN, anteroventral nucleus; DTN, dorsal tegmental nucleus; MMN, medial mammillary nucleus; LMN, lateral mammillary nucleus; Postsubic, postsubicular cortex; VTN, ventral tegmental nucleus.

 
One of these subloops is involved in signaling ongoing directional heading in navigating animals, and includes the lateral nucleus of the mammillary body, the anterodorsal subnucleus of the anterior thalamus, and the postsubicular and retrosplenial divisions of limbic cortex (see Sharp et al. 2001Go). Each of these areas contains head direction cells like those first documented by Taube et al. (1990)Go, as illustrated in Fig. 1, C and E. Although these direction-signaling cells are found in each of the structures throughout this subloop, and in several additional brain regions as well (e.g., Mizumori and Williams 1993Go; Wiener 1993Go), it has been suggested that the signal may originate in a circuit consisting of the reciprocally connected lateral mammillary and dorsal tegmental nuclei (e.g., Sharp et al. 2001Go). According to this idea, all other brain regions that contain head direction cells receive this directional signal through synaptic relays from the lateral mammillary nucleus.

Thus it could be that the functional contribution of the lateral mammillary nucleus is to provide this directional signal, which may be critical for certain kinds of spatial tasks, and which could possibly also affect memory processing even on tasks that are not obviously spatial in nature (Vann and Aggleton 2004Go).

The second component of the loop consists of the medial mammillary nucleus, the anteroventral and anteromedial subnuclei of the anterior thalamic nucleus, and the subicular and entorhinal cortices. At the level of the mammillary bodies, this component of the loop has received less study. In fact, to our knowledge, the data reported here constitute the first recordings from medial mammillary body cells in unanesthetized animals. Note, however, that the cortical components of this loop (subiculum and entorhinal cortex) are regions that contain locational signals (e.g., Frank et al. 2000Go; Fyhn et al. 2004Go; Quirk et al. 1992Go; Sharp and Green 1994Go), similar to the place cells originally discovered by O'Keefe and Dostrovsky (1971)Go. Thus, it might be expected that the medial mammillary nucleus plays a role in coding for spatial location.

To examine this possibility, we here report firing correlates for medial mammillary body cells recorded while rats performed a food-foraging task identical to that used for much of the work on head direction and place cells (Muller et al. 1987Go).


 METHODS
 
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 GRANTS
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 REFERENCES
 
Experimental subjects

The subjects were five male, Long–Evans rats, weighing between 250 and 400 g at shipping. The rats were housed individually upon arrival and had a 12-h light–dark schedule. All procedures related to the rats were conducted in accordance with NIH guidelines for animal care and use, and with the approval of the Animal Care and Use Committee at Bowling Green State University.

Recording chamber and behavioral task

All training and recording sessions were conducted in a 76.0-cm-diameter cylindrical recording chamber with 51-cm-high walls. The rats were food deprived to 80% of their ad lib weight and trained to search for 20-mg food pellets (P.J. Noyes, New Brunswick, NJ) that were dispensed to random locations within the chamber at approximately 15-s intervals throughout each session. As a result of the three, daily, 15-min training sessions, the rats developed a pattern of constant locomotion through the cylinder. Thus during subsequent recording sessions, the rats repeatedly traversed each region of the cylinder, using a pattern of diverse, seemingly random trajectories.

Electrode implantation

After training, two drivable microelectrode bundles (one per hemisphere), consisting of six wires each, were chronically implanted just above the medial mammillary nucleus (4.2 mm posterior, 1.72 mm lateral, and 8.2 mm ventral to bregma, at a mediolateral angle of 10 degrees). Each wire was made of insulated stainless steel (FHC, Brunswick, ME) with a 125-µm shank that tapered down to a 1-µm exposed recording tip.

Recording sessions

After recovery from surgery, the rats were given screening-recording sessions during which the activity on the recording electrodes was sampled while the rat performed the pellet-chasing task. Upon isolation of unit activity, recording was begun while the rat continued to chase pellets. Recording sessions were between 30 and 40 min in duration.

Data acquisition

The signals from each electrode wire were amplified at a gain of 20,000 to 50,000 and filtered at 600 Hz high pass and 6,000 Hz low pass and then sent to a computer for automatic data collection (Neuralynx, Tucson, AZ). Superthreshold events were analyzed, using waveform-specific characteristics, to determine the time of occurrence for the spikes from each individual cell.

The rat's moment-to-moment position within the cylinder was also sampled continuously, at 30 Hz, throughout the sessions, using a video tracker system (Neuralynx), which detected the position of a red and a green diode mounted on either side of the rat's head.

Data analysis

SPATIAL AND MOVEMENT CORRELATES.  The positions of the red and green headlights for each sample throughout the session were used to calculate, for each intersample interval, the rat's momentary head direction, location, running speed, and angular velocity.

These values were then used to calculate each cell's average firing rate for each value of head direction (divided into 60 bins, from 0 to 360 degrees), location within the cylinder (divided into 3.16 x 3.16-cm pixels), angular head velocity (divided into 20 bins over a range of –200 to +200 deg/s), and running speed (divided into 40 bins, each covering 1 cm/s). For angular velocity, negative values indicated counterclockwise turns (with larger negative values corresponding to faster counterclockwise turning speeds), whereas positive values indicated clockwise turning speed.

The plots of average firing rate as a function of running speed, as well as angular head velocity, were often linear (see Fig. 3 and 4). Because of this, the strength and sign of these correlations could be assessed using Pearson's correlation coefficient (referred to below as the R value).



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FIG. 3. Angular velocity correlates. Top trace for each cell shows average angular head velocity over time for samples selected for fast clockwise (thick lines) or fast counterclockwise (thin lines) head turns. Middle trace for each cell shows that cell's average firing rate over time for the same set of samples. Bottom trace for each cell shows average firing rate as a function of momentary angular head velocity for all samples across the entire session. Also shown are the Pearson's correlation (R) values for this function.

 


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FIG. 4. Firing rate as a function of running speed, head direction, and spatial location for 4 representative cells. Left trace for each cell shows the average firing rate as a function of running speed (translational motion) for all samples throughout the recording session. Middle trace shows average firing rate as a function of directional heading for all samples. Right panel shows an overhead view of the cylinder floor, with average firing rate in each location depicted using a gray scale in which darker shades represent higher rates. As described in METHODS, the values of this gray scale were chosen based on an algorhythm related to the average and SD of the pixel rates. For the cells depicted here, the average and SD for the pixels in each map were: top cell: mean = 0.72, SD = 0.77; 2nd cell: mean = 3.93, SD = 2.35; 3rd cell: mean = 5.38, SD = 2.64; bottom cell: mean = 2.03, SD = 2.03.

 
FIRING RATE CHANGES SURROUNDING EPISODES OF FAST HEAD TURNING.  It was of interest to examine the exact temporal pattern of any angular velocity correlates for these cells. For this, the list of angular velocity values throughout the session were scanned for episodes of 1) five consecutive samples over which the average angular velocity was greater than +150 deg/s, indicating a fast clockwise motion, and 2) five consecutive samples over which the average angular velocity was less than –150 deg/s, indicating a fast counterclockwise motion (note that because negative values are used to indicate counterclockwise turning speed, from 0 to –200, these large negative values correspond to fast counterclockwise turning motion). Then, for each of these categories, a 6-s epoch surrounding each episode was used to determine the average angular velocity over the course of the extracted epochs, as well as the average firing rate for the cell recorded during those same samples (see Fig. 3).

EXAMINATION OF SPATIAL (LOCATION-RELATED) CORRELATES.  Because the mammillary bodies are strongly interconnected with hippocampal regions known to contain place cells (see Fig. 1), it was of interest to examine the present data set for any possible place cell-like properties. For this, spatial firing rate maps (as in Fig. 1D) of the cylinder floor were constructed using methods identical to those used for cells in the hippocampal formation (e.g., Sharp and Green 1994Go). First, the cylinder floor was divided into a set of 2.9-cm2 pixels. Then, the average firing rate for each pixel throughout the session was calculated. Next, the mean and SD of these pixel averages were calculated. Then the relative rates for each pixel were displayed using a gray scale in which pixels that were 2SDs above the mean were represented using the darkest shade, pixels 1SD above the mean were shown using the second darkest shade, pixels within 1SD of the mean were shown using the next darkest shade, and so forth.

TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF SPIKE TRAINS.  Autocorrelation histograms were constructed by summing, across all spikes, the number of spikes in each of 300 subsequent 1-ms bins after the occurrence of that spike.

Reconstruction of electrode location

After recording, rats were perfused transcardially under deep anesthesia with a formyl saline solution. Beforehand, a small marking current (30 µA x 5 s) was passed through at least one wire of each electrode bundle. The brains were removed and then sectioned at 40-µm intervals, so that the location of each recorded cell could be determined.


 RESULTS
 
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 GRANTS
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 REFERENCES
 
Cell sample and histological verification of electrode placement

Data from the medial mammillary nucleus were collected from a total of 51 cells in five rats. The average firing rate for this sample was 4.8 Hz.

Figure 2 shows the right and left hemisphere electrode tracks from a representative brain as they traverse through the level of the medial mammillary nucleus. Note that the coronal plane of section for this brain was slightly off from the plane at which the electrodes descended, and this is why the tracks can be seen to descend from a level just above and at the top of the nucleus in Fig. 2B, on to the bottom of the nucleus in the more posterior section shown in Fig. 2D.



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FIG. 2. A: diagrammatic representation of a coronal section through the rat brain at the level of the medial mammillary body (modified from Paxinos and Watson 1997Go). B, C, and D: three, successive coronal slices (taken at 80-µm intervals from anterior to posterior) through the brain of a representative animal. Electrode track on the left (outlined in red) can be seen descending from the top of the medial mammillary nucleus in B, on through to the bottom of this nucleus in D. Small, dark circle at the bottom of the left side of the nucleus (blue arrow) marks the final (most ventral) position of the left hemisphere electrode bundle. Right hemisphere electrode (outlined in red) can be seen to traverse only a small portion of the far right side of the medial mammillary nucleus. No cells from this right hemisphere electrode were included in the present data set. Abbreviations: alv, alveus; cp, cerebral peduncle; cg, cingulum; DG, dentate gyrus; MM, medial mammillary nucleus.

 
Note that the electrode track for the left hemisphere descended solidly through the medial mammillary nucleus to reach a final position, at the end of recording, at the bottom of the nucleus (as marked by the small, dark circle in Fig. 2D). A total of six cells were recorded on this electrode track within the last 0.6 mm before the end of recording. Because these all fall within the region of the medial mammillary nucleus, they have all been included in this study.

The electrode track on the right, in contrast, only grazed the right-most edge of the medial mammillary nucleus. This suggests that, although some of the wires in this electrode bundle appear to have passed through the nucleus, it is likely that some did not. For this reason, none of the cells recorded from this electrode was included here.

The medial mammillary nucleus has been divided into five subnuclei (Allen and Hopkins 1988Go): pars lateralis, pars basalis, pars medialis, pars medianus, and pars posterior. Of these, all but pars medianus are strongly interconnected with the hippocampal formation and also with the VTN, as illustrated in Fig. 1A (Allen and Hopkins 1989Go; Shibata 1989Go). Of the 51 cells recorded here, 41 were in pars medialis, eight were in pars posterior, and two were in pars lateralis.

The firing rate for many cells showed a significant relationship to angular head velocity

The most salient behavioral correlate observed for the medial mammillary cells was angular head velocity. Seventeen of the 51 recorded cells (33.33%) showed a statistically significant (P < 0.01, two-tailed) correlation (R) with angular motion of the head. For eight of these 17 cells, the correlation was positive, suggesting that the cell increased its rate during clockwise turns, while decreasing for counterclockwise turns. For these eight cells, the average R value was +0.70. For the remaining nine of 17 cells, the correlation with angular velocity was negative, with an average R value of –0.64.

Figure 3 shows activity from four representative cells, each from a different rat. Each of these showed a clear, dramatic change in firing rate that was coincident with the head-turning motion. For example, Cell A showed a decrease in rate (middle trace) during clockwise turns, with a time course that appeared to mirror the angular head velocity (top trace) itself. In contrast, this cell showed no detectable change in rate during counterclockwise turns. Note that the plot of average rate in relation to momentary angular velocity (bottom trace) also reflects this cell's relative preference for counterclockwise turns.

The pattern shown by Cell C consists of an increase during clockwise turns and a decrease during counterclockwise turns. This results in the strong positive correlation between momentary firing rate and angular velocity, as shown in the bottom trace for Cell C.

Cells B and D each showed somewhat more complex temporal patterns. Thus, Cell B showed a decrease in rate that was coincident with counterclockwise turns, but showed an increase that was slightly delayed in relation to clockwise turns. Cell D showed a decrease, then increase during clockwise turns, while showing no obvious relationship to counterclockwise turns. Note, the bottom trace for Cell D indicates that the overall correlation between rate and momentary angular velocity was not significant. (Thus, this cell was not counted, above, among the 17 cells that showed a significant R value.) This probably results from the fact that the timing of the changes during clockwise turns was such that the cell was in transition from low to high rates at the peak of any fast clockwise turning motion. Also, as just mentioned, this cell seemed to show no relation to counterclockwise turns.

Many cells showed a linear relationship to running speed

Figure 4 (left) shows average firing rate as a function of running speed (translational motion) for a set of four representative cells, each recorded from a different rat. Overall, 29/51 (57.9%) of the cells showed a significant correlation between firing rate and running speed. For 26 of these cells the correlation was positive, indicating that the cell fired at higher rates during faster running. The average R value of these positive correlations was +0.74. For the remaining three cells the correlation was negative, with an average R of –0.82. Note, the top cell in Fig. 4 provides an example of a cell with no detectable relationship to running speed. In contrast, the bottom three cells all show a significant, positive correlation with this variable.

In contrast to the angular velocity correlates described above, the running speed correlates were not typically tightly tied temporally to instances of fast running. Rather, firing rate for most cells was coarsely correlated with running speed, so that there were bouts of relatively high frequency firing that were accompanied by bouts of relatively fast running. These alternated with bouts of relatively slow running and lower firing rates (data not shown). For most cells, momentary bursts of particularly fast or slow speed were not accompanied by noticeable changes in rate.

No medial mammillary cells showed either head direction or place correlates

Figure 4 (middle) shows average firing rate as a function of directional heading for each of the representative cells. For each of these, there was no indication of a single preferred direction like that observed for head direction cells (see Fig. 1E). Indeed, no cell showed evidence of any form of consistent relationship to directional heading.

Figure 4 (right) shows the locational firing rate map for each cell. None of these cells showed evidence of preferred spatial locations like that typically observed for cells in the hippocampal, subicular, and entorhinal cortices (see Fig. 1D). Indeed, none of the cells recorded here showed any sign of consistent location-related signaling.

Almost all medial mammillary cells showed a strong modulation of firing rate at theta frequency

Figure 5 shows autocorrelation histograms for four representative medial mammillary cells. Each of these showed a strong temporal modulation of rate, so that there were peaks in firing probability at approximately 140-ms intervals. This corresponds to a frequency of about 7 Hz, which is within the range of the theta EEG rhythm exhibited in the hippocampus. Only four cells (from three rats) failed to show this temporal pattern.



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FIG. 5. Autocorrelation histograms for 4 representative cells (A–D).

 

 DISCUSSION
 
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 GRANTS
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 REFERENCES
 
Medial mammillary cells show correlations with both angular and translational head movement

One third of the cells recorded here showed a significant, closely timed relationship to angular head motion. Each cell had its own idiosyncratic pattern of rate changes over the course of rapid clockwise and/or counterclockwise head turns, as illustrated in Fig. 3. Importantly, each of these cells showed a differential response for clockwise versus counterclockwise turns. This means that the cell population rate vector provides an unambiguous indication of whether the movement trajectory is to the left or to the right.

These findings can be contrasted to those from the lateral mammillary nucleus, where only 3/41 cells showed this type of angular velocity activity (Blair et al. 1998Go). [Note, Stackman and Taube (1998)Go reported angular velocity correlates for 44% of their lateral mammillary body cells, but for these cells the response (either an increase or a decrease) was identical for clockwise and counterclockwise turns.]

There are at least two possible sources for the medial mammillary angular head turning information. One is from the vestibular and prepositus hypoglossis nuclei, which contain angular velocity signals from the vestibular system and project, by the ventral tegmental nucleus (see Fig. 1A), to the medial mammillary body (Irle et al. 1984Go). The other possible source is from the habenula, which also projects to the ventral tegmental nucleus (Herkenham and Nauta 1979Go; Irle et al. 1984Go). The habenula, in turn, receives its major input from the internal segment of the globus pallidus (Herkenham and Nauta 1977Go), which, presumably, provides motor-related information. A recent study (PE Sharp, S Turner-Williams, and S. Tuttle, unpublished observations) has shown that the habenula does, in fact, contain angular velocity cells similar to those observed here.

In addition to these angular head velocity correlates, many (nearly 60%) of the cells were correlated with running speed. The majority of these showed a positive correlation, so that faster running was accompanied by higher firing rates. Observation of these firing patterns during episodes of fast running (data not shown) indicated that the timing for the fast firing was not tightly correlated with brief bursts of high speed. Rather, these cells showed generally higher rates during periods of relatively high locomotor activity, and vice versa.

These running speed correlates could also, possibly, be projected from the habenula because that region also contains cells that are coarsely correlated with running speed (Sharp et al., unpublished observations).

Indeed, one possible explanation for both the angular velocity and running speed correlates reported here could be that they are both driven by motor command–related activity from the entopeduncular nucleus (by the habenula–ventral tegmental pathway). Thus the angular velocity signal could be driven by motor commands for neck muscle contraction. Similarly, the running speed correlates could possibly involve signals to control other individual muscle groups, such as forearm or back muscles. If the cells are related to this type of specific movement, this might explain why the running speed correlations are not closely temporally tied to episodes of fast running. For example, any cell that is tied to movement of the right forelimb would be expected to be generally more active during fast rather than slow running, but would probably not coincide exactly with brief bursts of high speed.

Yet another possible source of running-related input is the superior central nucleus, which also provides a major projection to the medial mammillary nucleus (Hayakawa and Zyo 1991Go). Cells in this nucleus, as studied in freely moving cats, fire in relation to behavioral state, so that they are optimally active during active wakefulness, and then systematically decrease their rate as the animal descends into quiet wakefulness, slow-wave sleep, and, finally, rapid eye movement sleep (Rasmussen et al. 1984Go). Interestingly, Rasmussen et al. (1984)Go reported that the cells were not tightly tied to phasic increases in EMG activity. Rather, they were tonically active at high rates during periods of high motor activity. Thus, it is possible that if these centralis superior cells were recorded during the pellet-chasing task used here, periods of relatively fast running would be coarsely correlated with relatively higher tonic firing rates, just as were the medial mammillary body cells recorded here.

Medial mammillary cells do not show location or head direction correlates

There was no indication that any medial mammillary cell activity was correlated with spatial location, as is the case for many cells in the hippocampal formation (see Fig. 1D). This is surprising given that the medial mammillary nuclei receive a strong input from both the dorsal and ventral subiculum (Allen and Hopkins 1989Go; Shibata 1989Go), and the majority of dorsal subicular cells show strong locational correlates when recorded during this task (Sharp and Green 1994Go). Thus, either the subicular projection to the mammillary bodies arises from a select population of nonspatial cells, or the locational signal from the subiculum is somehow averaged out, or otherwise cancelled, upon arrival in the medial mammillary nucleus.

One possibility is that there are place signals in portions of the medial mammillary bodies that were not sampled here. As described in the RESULTS section, cells in this study were recorded from only three of the five subnuclei of which the medial mammillary nucleus is composed. Thus, it is possible that place cells would have been discovered if each subnucleus had been thoroughly sampled. However, anatomical work has demonstrated that, with the expection of pars medianus of the medial mammillary nucleus (from which no cells were recorded here), all the subnuclei share very similar connectivity (Allen and Hopkins 1989Go; Shibata 1989Go). Specifically, all are strongly connected with the subicular cortex and the ventral tegmental nucleus, as diagrammed in Fig. 1A. This makes it seem unlikely that these four subnuclei would differ strongly in their behavioral correlates.

Of course, given the limited sample (51 cells) recorded here, it cannot be entirely ruled out that there could be a small population of place cells within the medial mammillary nuclei. However, if such cells do exist, they would constitute a much smaller percentage of the overall population than is the case for other areas from which place cells have been recorded.

It is worth noting that this absence of locational signals in the medial mammillary nucleus is in sharp contrast to parallel findings in the lateral mammillary nucleus. As illustrated in Fig. 1A, the lateral mammillary nucleus is connected to other limbic regions that contain head direction cells, and the lateral mammillary nucleus itself also contains these directional cells (Blair et al. 1998Go; Stackman and Taube 1998Go). In contrast, although the medial mammillary nucleus is connected with limbic areas that signal spatial location, this nucleus does not appear to show any location-related (place cell) activity itself.

These medial mammillary nucleus cells also showed no evidence of head direction–like properties. This is not surprising, given that this nucleus is not connected to regions that contain head direction cells.

Most medial mammillary cells showed a strong modulation of rate at theta frequency

Almost all of the cells recorded here showed rhythmic modulation of their firing rate at a frequency of about 7 Hz. This frequency is within the range of the theta EEG rhythm as recorded in the hippocampal formation during locomotion. This suggests that these medial mammillary cells may fire in a fixed relation to the hippocampal theta rhythm, when present, in the awake animal, as is the case for mammillary body cells in anesthetized animals (Kocsis and Vertes 1994Go). Indeed, as mentioned above, the subicular region of the hippocampal formation projects strongly to all portions of the medial mammillary nucleus (Allen and Hopkins 1989Go; Shibata 1989Go), and spatial cells that are strongly modulated at theta frequency have been recorded in this area in freely moving rats as they performed the pellet-chasing task used here (Sharp and Green 1994Go).

The large proportion of theta-modulated cells found here can be contrasted with recordings from the lateral mammillary nucleus, where much smaller percentages have been reported (Blair et al. 1998Go; Stackman and Taube 1998Go).

The medial and lateral mammillary bodies together may provide necessary inputs for the calculation of the place cell signals in the hippocampal formation

Empirical work on place cells in the hippocampal formation has demonstrated that this location-specific firing is controlled, in part, by a path-integration process. In this process, the animal's own movement through space is used to constantly update the hippocampal place cell activity vector. Specifically, theoretical models of the place cell system (e.g., McNaughton et al. 1996Go) require three types of information for this path-integration process: 1) current position (spatial location), 2) current directional heading, and 3) current movement state. Logically, it can be seen that these are the necessary and sufficient inputs for translational path integration because, for any given start position and directional heading, a particular movement will always result in a predictable new locational position.

The necessary information for current position is assumed to arise from the place cells themselves, which are assumed to provide feedback projections for the path-integration process. The directional information is assumed to come from the limbic system head direction signal, which, as mentioned above, is postulated to arise from the lateral mammillary nucleus. The data presented here suggest that the necessary movement trajectory information may be provided, at least in part, by the medial mammillary nucleus.

Thus it could be that the lateral and medial mammillary nuclei together provide necessary building blocks for construction of the limbic system place cell activity. This could, in turn, explain why mammillary body damage seems to preferentially affect memory on spatial tasks.


 GRANTS
 
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 GRANTS
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 REFERENCES
 
This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants R01 NS-35191 and R01 MH-66460.


 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 GRANTS
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 REFERENCES
 
Thanks to M. Gerdeman and K. Jaynes for help in data collection and analysis.


 FOOTNOTES
 
The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. The article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: P. E. Sharp, Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403 (E-mail: psharp{at}bgnet.bgsu.edu).


 REFERENCES
 
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 GRANTS
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 REFERENCES
 
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