An independent, landmark-dominated head-direction signal in dysgranular retrosplenial cortex

Pierre-Yves Jacob, Giulio Casali, Laure Spieser, Hector Page, Dorothy Overington, Kate Jeffery
Nature Neuroscience. 2016-12-19; 20(2): 173-175
DOI: 10.1038/nn.4465

1. Nat Neurosci. 2017 Feb;20(2):173-175. doi: 10.1038/nn.4465. Epub 2016 Dec 19.

An independent, landmark-dominated head-direction signal in dysgranular
retrosplenial cortex.

Jacob PY(1), Casali G(1), Spieser L(2), Page H(1), Overington D(1), Jeffery
K(1).

Author information:
(1)Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, Research Department of Experimental
Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College
London, London, UK.
(2)Department of Psychology, City University of London, London, UK.

Comment in
Nat Neurosci. 2017 Jan 27;20(2):131-133. doi: 10.1038/nn.4480.

We investigated how landmarks influence the brain’s computation of head
direction and found that in a bidirectionally symmetrical environment, some
neurons in dysgranular retrosplenial cortex showed bidirectional firing
patterns. This indicates dominance of neural activity by local environmental
cues even when these conflicted with the global head direction signal. It
suggests a mechanism for associating landmarks to or dissociating them from the
head direction signal, according to their directional stability and/or utility.

DOI: 10.1038/nn.4465
PMCID: PMC5274535
PMID: 27991898 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Conflict of interest statement: KJ is a non-shareholding director of Axona Ltd