Role of the lateral mammillary nucleus in the rat head direction circuit: A combined single unit recording and lesion study

Hugh T. Blair, Jeiwon Cho, Patricia E. Sharp

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

162 Scopus citations

Abstract

We recorded head direction (HD) cells from the lateral mammillary nucleus (LMN) and anterior thalamus (ATN) of freely behaving rats and also made bilateral lesions of LMN while recording HD cells from ATN. We discovered that the tuning functions of LMN HD cells become narrower during contraversive head turns, but not ipsiversive head turns, compared to when the head is not turning. This narrowing effect does not occur for ATN HD cells. We also found that the HD signal in LMN leads that in ATN by about 15- 20 ms. When LMN was lesioned bilaterally, HD cells in ATN immediately lost their directional firing properties and never recovered them. Based on these findings, we argue that LMN may be an essential component of an attractor- integrator network that participates in generating the HD signal.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1387-1397
Number of pages11
JournalNeuron
Volume21
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1998

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by NIMH NRSA Fellowship 1 F31 MH11102–01A1 to H. T. B. and by NIH grant R01 NS35191–01A1 to P. E. S.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Role of the lateral mammillary nucleus in the rat head direction circuit: A combined single unit recording and lesion study'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this