Episodic-like memory trace in awake replay of hippocampal place cell activity sequences

By Susumu Takahashi. 2015

31 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Episodic memory retrieval of events at a specific place and time is effective for future planning. Sequential reactivation of the hippocampal place cells along familiar paths while the animal pauses is well suited to such a memory retrieval process. It is, however, unknown whether this awake replay represents events occurring along the path. Using a subtask switching protocol in which the animal experienced three subtasks as ‘what’ information in a maze, I here show that the replay represents a trial type, consisting of path and subtask, in terms of neuronal firing timings and rates. The actual trial type to be rewarded could only be reliably predicted from replays that occurred at the decision point. This trial-type representation implies that not only ‘where and when’ but also ‘what’ information is contained in the replay. This result supports the view that awake replay is an episodic-like memory retrieval process. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.08105.001

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience

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Citations in the corpus

Offline replay supports planning in human reinforcement learning (2018, background): “Indeed, this hypothesis fits closely with a substantial rodent literature revealing that hippocampal replay of previously experienced spatial trajectories is observed during both awake behavior and sleep (Takahashi, 2015; Ólafsdóttir et al., 2015).”
The content of hippocampal “replay” (2018, background): “Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that replay may encode more than simple spatial trajectories, representing both “what” and “where” information simultaneously (Takahashi, 2015), broadening the scope of replay to encompass episodic memory.”