Theta Rhythms Coordinate Hippocampal–Prefrontal Interactions in a Spatial Memory Task

By Matthew W. Jones, Matthew A. Wilson. 2005

1,061 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Decision-making requires the coordinated activity of diverse brain structures. For example, in maze-based tasks, the prefrontal cortex must integrate spatial information encoded in the hippocampus with mnemonic information concerning route and task rules in order to direct behavior appropriately. Using simultaneous tetrode recordings from CA1 of the rat hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex, we show that correlated firing in the two structures is selectively enhanced during behavior that recruits spatial working memory, allowing the integration of hippocampal spatial information into a broader, decision-making network. The increased correlations are paralleled by enhanced coupling of the two structures in the 4- to 12-Hz theta-frequency range. Thus the coordination of theta rhythms may constitute a general mechanism through which the relative timing of disparate neural activities can be controlled, allowing specialized brain structures to both encode information independently and to interact selectively according to current behavioral demands.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience

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Citations in the corpus

Hippocampal replay in the awake state: a potential physiological substrate of memory consolidation and retrieval (2011, background): “We do know that theta coherence between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex is greater at locations where animals must execute a memory-guided decisio”
The Role of Sleep in Emotional Brain Function (2014, background): “P A A uthor M anuscript promote their integration into pre-existing autobiographical memory networks (Cahill 2000, Jones & Wilson 2005).”
Overnight Alchemy: Sleep-dependent Memory Evolution (2010, background): “, and dominance of theta wave carrier oscillations, facilitating associative linking throughout disparate cortical area”
Neural syntax: cell assemblies, synapsembles and readers (2010, neutral): “…et al., 2009; Moser et al., 2008), prefrontal cortex, and other structures (Benchenane et al., 2010; Berke et al., 2004; DeCoteau et al., 2007; Jones and Wilson, 2005; Siapas et al., 2005; Sirota et al., 2008; Tort et al., 2008), the mechanisms explored in the hippocampus may apply to these…”
Overnight Therapy? The Role of Sleep in Emotional Brain Processing (2009, background): “In this way, REM sleep theta oscillations may afford the ability to strengthen distributed aspects of specific memory representations across related but different anatomical networks (Buzsaki, 2002; Jones & Wilson, 2005).”
State-dependent spike timing relationships between hippocampal and prefrontal circuits during sleep (2009, background): “, 2003) and the known interactions between the two areas during awake behavior (Siapas et al., 2005; Hyman et al., 2005; Jones and Wilson, 2005) and sleep (Siapas and Wilson, 1998; Mölle et al.”
Synchronized activity between the ventral hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex during anxiety (2010, positive): “Theta-frequency synchrony has been shown between the dHPC and the mPFC during working memory (Jones and Wilson, 2005), the striatum during learning (DeCoteau et al., 2007), and the amygdala during fear conditioning (Seidenbecher et al., 2003).”
Altered brain microRNA biogenesis contributes to phenotypic deficits in a 22q11-deletion mouse model (2008, background): “Acquisition of this task is dependent on the integrity of fronto-hippocampal circuitr”
The role of phase synchronization in memory processes (2011, background): “In maze-learning experiments in rats, animals show increased theta phase synchronization between the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampu”
Neurophysiological and Computational Principles of Cortical Rhythms in Cognition (2010, background): “Correlated neural firing and LFP coherence between the hippocampus and frontal cortex were enhanced at the theta frequency during a spatial memory task (484); correlation analysis of simultaneously recorded single hippocampal and frontal neurons revealed a hippocampo-frontal directionality (870).”