PMID-18772431[0] Internally generated cell assembly sequences in the rat hippocampus.
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- The task was unique: the rats had to run in a wheel for 10-20 seconds before choosing the left or right arms of a figure-8 maze. The rats were rewarded with water if they alternated arm choice.
- Looked at the activity of pyramical cells - many of them place cells as well as episode-cells - in the hippocampus, and found that the pattern of firing per neuron was predictable and predictive or which choice the rat would take after running in the wheel.
- The same pattern of hippocampal firing was not found in a control running task (one that did not require a choice).
- The pattern of firing was phase locked to the theta oscillations in the hippocampus; this phase relationship gradually advanced during the course of trials.
- During the wheel running, there seemed to be a series of delayed firing bursts by the hippocampal neurons.
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