Speed cells in the medial entorhinal cortex
Open accessAbstract
Grid cells in the medial entorhinal cortex have spatial firing fields that repeat periodically in a hexagonal pattern. When animals move, activity is translated between grid cells in accordance with the animal's displacement in the environment. For this translation to occur, grid cells must have continuous access to information about instantaneous running speed. However, a powerful entorhinal speed signal has not been identified. Here we show that running speed is represented in the firing rate of a ubiquitous but functionally dedicated population of entorhinal neurons distinct from other cell populations of the local circuit, such as grid, head-direction and border cells. These 'speed cells' are characterized by a context-invariant positive, linear response to running speed, and share with grid cells a prospective bias of ∼50-80 ms. Our observations point to speed cells as a key component of the dynamic representation of self-location in the medial entorhinal cortex.
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Mammalian extra-hippocampal cortical areas contain functionally specialized neurons such as head direction cells, border cells, and grid cells that likely encode relevant spatial information in egocentric coordinates.
“Mammalian extra-hippocampal cortical areas contain a variety of functionally specialized neurons with presumably distinct roles in the representation of space, i.e., “head direction cells”, “border cells”, and “grid cells”, that likely encode relevant spatial information in egocentric coordinates [72,193,194,195,196].”
From Spatial Cognition in Teleost Fish: Strategies and Mechanisms (2021) · cites this paper as [194]
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- Authors
- Kropff, E., Carmichael, J. E., Moser, M.-B., & Moser, E. I.
- Affiliations
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
- Corresponding author
- Kropff, Emilio
- Moser, Edvard I.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2015-07
- Volume
- 523
- Issue
- 7561
- Pages
- 419-424
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W1512234833
- Cited by
- 668
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 65 · 2024: 51 · 2023: 61 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 74 · 2020: 59 · 2019: 62 · 2018: 71 · 2017: 71 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 17
- FWCI
- 39.87
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-sa
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- CONICET Digital (CONICET) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Spatial Cognition and Navigation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Developmental Neuroscience › Neurogenesis and neuroplasticity mechanisms
- Keywords
- medial entorhinal cortex, grid cells, self-localization, spatial navigation, head direction cells, border cells
- MeSH terms
- Acceleration, Action Potentials, Animals, Environment, Male, Models, Neurological, Neurons, Running, Time Factors, Entorhinal Cortex, Rats, Long-Evans, Rats
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