#placefields — Public Fediverse posts

New paper from the Poirazi lab, together w Losonczy and Polleux labs:

See how much #dendritic geometry matters for #SpatialCoding: Clustered excitatory inputs on #CA1 #dendrites can support stable #PlaceFields with fewer active #synapses, by engaging local dendritic nonlinearities and Ca2+ signaling.

📄 https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(26)00871-5

Nice example of #DendriticComputing: not just which synapses are active, but where they are placed along the dendritic tree, shapes #NeuronalComputation.

#Neuroscience

New paper by Maimon et al (Ulanovsky lab): recordings from #bats flying through tunnels up to 200 m reveal a sparse-to-dense transformation between #hippocampal #CA3 and #CA1.

In small environments, CA3 and CA1 #PlaceCells look similar. At large spatial scales, however, CA3 #neurons mostly show single, ultrasparse #PlaceFields, while CA1 neurons show dense multifield coding.

🌍 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10537-0

🧵1/2

#Neuroscience #Hippocampus #SpatialNavigation #NeuralDynamics

📖 Vaidya et al. investigate how #hippocampal #CA1 #PlaceCells form expanding #memory representations over days. Using longitudinal in vivo recordings, they show that stable #PlaceFields progressively emerge as active cells increase their likelihood of remaining active across sessions. This gradual stabilization hinges on #behavioral‑timescale #SynapticPlasticity, offering a new model of how CA1 memories solidify w/o #CatastrophicOverwriting.

🌍 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-01986-3

#Hippocampus #Neuroscience

And as an added bonus: Dileep George, one of the authors of the paper, just shared a #JupyterNotebook demo 🐍📔. You can explore the #CSCG model, visualize #PlaceFields, and inspect the learned #latent #graphs 📈 Just try it out, it's great fun 👌

🌍 https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1kgjuoz_Noo7uV87StSbW7T8-IBQmPOLE?usp=sharing#scrollTo=7jnInNH7RUAX

#Hippocampus #CognitiveMaps #CSCG #Neuroscience #ComputationalModeling #CompNeuro

This paper by Raju et al. proposes a unified model – “clone‑structured causal #graphs” (#CSCG) – for #hippocampal #SpatialCoding. It suggests that #SpatialMaps arise from #learning #latent higher‑order sequences rather than representing #EuclideanSpace directly. The model elegantly explains phenomena like #PlaceFields, #SplitterCells, #contextual #remapping, and predicts when #PlaceFieldMapping may mislead.

🌍 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adm8470

#Hippocampus #CognitiveMaps #SequenceLearning #Neuroscience

New review on the “spatial cells” across different species! Looks very interesting:
Neural mechanisms for spatial cognition across vertebrates
Vinepinsky & Segev 2023

Small but important comment: it is perfectly normal for place cells to have multiple #PlaceFields ! Only in very small environments (<80cm diameter) will you mostly see single-field place cells. The single field is probably more the exception than the rule in the natural world.

#NeuroPaper #Review #Neuroscience #PlaceCells #HeadDirectionCells #GridCells #BVCs #CrossSpecies

@shannonmattern Thank you. More improv, please. This piece got me hooked. Illuminating and very helpful to my family as we work to take care of my Father in late stage dementia. Place neurons. Place fields.

https://placesjournal.org/article/architectural-and-urban-design-for-dementia-care/

#PlaceFields #Volumes